Posthuman Space in Mario Petrucci and Alice Oswald s Poetry — Seçil Erkoç Iqbal

Drawing on recent posthumanist theories that promote a non anthropocentric perspective this study examines the works of contemporary British poets Mario Petrucci and Alice Oswald It is argued that their poetry can be described as posthuman poetry which envisions posthuman spaces of becoming where human and nonhuman worlds coexist on a non hierarchical basis Petrucci s engagement with ecocritical crises in the Anthropocene underscores the limits of human agency and it foregrounds destructive impact of human actions on the ecosystem In a posthuman context therefore Petrucci problematises the human nonhuman binary by representing the erosion of the anthropocentric worldview in the face of environmental crises such as deforestation global warming and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Bosco 1999 Heavy Water A Poem for Chernobyl 2004 and Half Life Poems for Chernobyl 2004 In these collections challenging the perception of nonhuman matter as passive Petrucci emphasises the agency of trees and radioactive particles Similarly Alice Oswald moves the reader beyond the human centred treatment of the natural world Rejecting human exceptionalism Oswald s Dart 2002 presents a polyphonic meshwork where the voices of alternating human speakers and the River Dart interweave within a posthuman space Representing the intersubjective and dialogic exchanges between the human and nonhuman inhabitants of the Severn Estuary and the lunar cycle Oswald s A Sleepwalk on the Severn 2009 further problematises the subject object binary by creating a posthuman space of becoming grounded in a communicative framework Hence bringing Petrucci and Oswald together this study draws attention to trans corporeal and polyphonic entanglements of human nonhuman subject object and self other non binaries and it aims to show how poetry as a literary medium can contribute to questioning and transforming the anthropocentric vision of humankind in the contemporary world

Drawing on recent posthumanist theories that promote a non anthropocentric perspective this study examines the works of contemporary British poets Mario Petrucci and Alice Oswald It is argued that their poetry can be described as posthuman poetry which envisions posthuman spaces of becoming where human and nonhuman worlds coexist on a non hierarchical basis Petrucci s engagement with ecocritical crises in the Anthropocene underscores the limits of human agency and it foregrounds destructive impact of human actions on the ecosystem In a posthuman context therefore Petrucci problematises the human nonhuman binary by representing the erosion of the anthropocentric worldview in the face of environmental crises such as deforestation global warming and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Bosco 1999 Heavy Water A Poem for Chernobyl 2004 and Half Life Poems for Chernobyl 2004 In these collections challenging the perception of nonhuman matter as passive Petrucci emphasises the agency of trees and radioactive particles Similarly Alice Oswald moves the reader beyond the human centred treatment of the natural world Rejecting human exceptionalism Oswald s Dart 2002 presents a polyphonic meshwork where the voices of alternating human speakers and the River Dart interweave within a posthuman space Representing the intersubjective and dialogic exchanges between the human and nonhuman inhabitants of the Severn Estuary and the lunar cycle Oswald s A Sleepwalk on the Severn 2009 further problematises the subject object binary by creating a posthuman space of becoming grounded in a communicative framework Hence bringing Petrucci and Oswald together this study draws attention to trans corporeal and polyphonic entanglements of human nonhuman subject object and self other non binaries and it aims to show how poetry as a literary medium can contribute to questioning and transforming the anthropocentric vision of humankind in the contemporary world