EcoEcstatic Poetry: A New Genre?

EcoEcstatic Poetry: A New Genre

Every year the amazing Poets on the Coast (POTC) Conference gives participants the opportunity to have a short mentoring session with one of the workshop leaders. This year I zoomed with poet and POTC co-founder, Susan Rich. I asked for examples of  contemporary, ecstatic, visionary poets. Who is the contemporary William Blake? Hafiz? Rumi? Sappho? Coleridge? Maybe Lorca, Simone Weil?

As I stumbled to describe my poetry to Susan Rich, I realized ecstatic poetry did not tell my whole story. I tried again. “I write Ecopoetry that is also spiritual— spiritual but not religious. (please, won’t someone create a better term for that?) With that the right words popped into my mind. I said, “I write eco-ecstatic poetry.”

Susan loved both the combination of ideas and, like any good poet, the sound of the word combination --eco-ecstatic. I love them too and am delighted to have discovered my niche: I am an EcoEcstatic poet. Many thanks to Susan and POTC for helping me define myself as a poet!

 Watch for my first poem titled EcoEcstatic, coming soon to a journal near you. This will also be the title of my first poetry collection.

 EcoEcstatic Poetry. Is a new genre born?