Karen Solie's poetry collection, Wellwater, challenges the human desire to control and frame landscapes. Through her raw and honest exploration of modern environmental issues, Solie presents a world marred by human intervention—from genetically modified crops to the aftermath of agricultural chemicals. The collection reflects on the struggles of nature to adapt and survive, featuring poignant imagery of distress and resilience. Amidst the chaos, moments of fleeting beauty emerge, highlighting the tension between nostalgia for simplicity and the stark realities of the contemporary world.
The pages reek of fungicide and glyphosate, a weedkiller linked poignantly by the poet to a case of non-Hodgkin lymphoma: ask the crew boss who cleared the nozzle of my sprayer/by blowing through it, Solie insists, they can't go back.
In this blazingly honest catalogue of human-made hazard and harm, we celebrate instead the contemporary landscapes refusing to be tamed.
I don't know how to make this beautiful, she confesses. Can we go back? Meet each other in the old knowledge? If only we could, is the tragically bitter aftertaste of these poems.
Yet Karen Solie's wildly unpredictable collection Wellwater flips the script, showcasing contemporary landscapes that are not easily controlled, revealing the beauty of chaos.
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