In this episode, we talk to Bristol City Poet Caleb Parkin about taxonomies, ecophrastic poems and the historical exclusion of LGBTQIA+ people from environmental movements and access to nature. We chat about the way our sense of 'nature' is always mediated through culture and the need for irreverence and irony to offset the self-righteousness that can be associated with climate activism. We discuss how queer perspectives can alter the conversation around climate justice and the need for us to sit with uncertainty and unknowingness. 

Caleb's dazzling, slippery poetry collection - This Fruiting Body - is out now from Nine Arches Press.

As a Tender Buttons listener you can get 10% discount on Caleb's book at Storysmith Books, listen in for more details and then head to our page on the Storysmith website: storysmithbooks.com/tenderbuttons

References

This Fruiting Body by Caleb Parkin

Wasted Rainbow by Caleb Parkin

Nicole Seymour

Timothy Morton

Strangers by Rebecca Tamás

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown 

Hiddenness, Uncertainty, Surprise by Jane Hirshfield

Our theme music is a sample from Flotation by Ben Vince from his album The Purge.