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Friday Poem – ‘What We Found in the Arctic, or, the Geopolitics of New Natural Resources Uncovered by Melted Ice’ by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘What We Found in the Arctic, or, the Geopolitics of New Natural Resources Uncovered by Melted Ice’ by Carolyn Jess-Cooke from her new collection We Have To Leave The Earth.

This cover shows a photo of a ball of tangled fishing twine resting against a pink and blue background.

Carolyn Jess-Cooke’s new poetry collection is both keenly political and deeply personal. The opening poem ‘now’ features a seemingly peaceful domestic scene of a family lounging at home as the starting point for meditation on history, time, mortality and the fate of the planet. There are hints of a struggle with depression stemming from a difficult childhood. There is a cherished child diagnosed with autism. There are two sequences: Songs for the Arctic, inspired by field work done for the Arctic at the Thought Foundation, poems that are vividly descriptive of an extreme landscape, aware of the fraught history of exploration and sensitive to the way changes in the pack ice are the most significant indicators of man-made global warming. The other sequence, The House of Rest, is a history in nine poems of Josephine Butler (1828-1906), who pioneered feminist activism, and helped to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act 1869, which facilitated sexual violence in the name of disease prevention. Jess-Cooke is unafraid of dark material but is also ultimately hopeful and full of creative strategies to meet challenging times. 

What We Found in the Arctic, or, the Geopolitics of New Natural Resources Uncovered by Melted Ice Mme and M. Dumoulin, missing since 1942 Nickel Rubber ducks A Russian flag pronged on the seafloor Copper Three Incan children, sacrificed Anthrax Bird fossils from the Cretaceous period Gold Prehistoric skis Saami, Nenets, Khanty, Evenk, Chukchi, Aleut, Yupik, Dolgan, and Inuit Natural Gas 1700 species of plants Record levels of microplastics Diamonds A hunter from 3000 B.C. Oil A horse from the Iron Age, with perfectly preserved manure Territorial claims for the Arctic Continental Shelf Polar bears, starving Coal Disputations concerning territorial waters 45,000 Russian troops 3,400 Russian military vehicles 41 Russian ships 15 Russian submarines 110 Russian planes The albedo effect, claimed by no one

We Have To Leave The Earth is available on the Seren website: £9.99

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Join us online for the virtual launch of We Have To Leave The Earth on Tuesday 16th November from 7pm. Carolyn will be reading from the collection alongside guest readers Liz Berry and Jen Hadfield. Register for free via Eventbrite here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/193473353007.