steven w. beattie on watch your head

Steven W. Beattie writes about WATCH YOUR HEAD on That Shakespearean Rag!

“The planet’s on fucking fire.” That’s how popular scientist Bill Nye described the Earth’s existential dilemma on a recent episode of the HBO satirical news show This Week Tonight with John Oliver. Where the current, ongoing, global climate emergency is concerned, Nye is certainly not the only figure to express alarm. In a furious speech to the United Nations in New York City on September 23, sixteen-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg denounced world leaders who are sitting on their hands as rising temperatures threaten the future of human life on the planet: “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

Notwithstanding the increasing sense of urgency on the part of an ever larger segment of the worldwide population, entrenched special interests wielding power and – not incidentally – enormous tranches of wealth continue to ensure that the political will to enact legislation capable of curtailing the climate catastrophe remains untapped.

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“I’ve long been compelled toward environmental issues including their intersection with class and structural racism,” [Hoa] Nguyen says. ... Nguyen also sees the project as a way to tap into a community of artists and enable a sense of purpose through unity: “Poetry is a practice that includes organizing and collaborating with other poets, including ways to celebrate and activate poetry that impact beyond the page and reader, time or place.” That Shakespearean Rag, October 7, 2019

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Check out Steven W. Beattie's piece about WATCH YOUR HEAD in the Quill & Quire, which you can read here if you are a subscriber.

​... on the horizon is a print anthology to be published by Coach House Books next year. “While it might seem counterintuitive to produce a book about climate change, I believe in a book’s power to concretize and galvanize,” says Coach House editorial director Alana Wilcox. “A critical mass of smart, articulate voices – whether they be angry poems, imploring non-fiction, slyly political stories, or whatever might come our way – can serve to rally support and keep the conversation about this emergency front and centre.” A call for submissions will go out toward the end of October and all proceeds from the book will be donated to a climate justice charity."  Quill & Quire, October 7, 2019