Felicia Zamora

El Cielo En Nuestros Ojos :: Ecological Inamorata Pulse

This book-length hybrid text of vignettes, microessays, docupoems, images, and scientific data/graphs uses “undulations” (Zuihitsu vignettes/poetic fragmentation) in the voice of a future Latina researcher investigating the collapse of human civilization from climate disaster in 2098. This book uniquely explores Latinx experience and futurity in the time of climate disaster, examining the disproportionate ways climate change/environmental decline impacts Latinx communities and peoples at the beginning of the 21st century. Poems, data, and ephemera trace contemporary environmental issues and historical trends leading to human destruction of viable living on the Earth. Poems use imaginative means and critical fabulation to incorporate ancient Mesoamerican knowledge, older ways of knowing, and magic as modalities of survival of Latinx people to adapt after the state of collapse. 

The work evolves the epic form by using a term I call “undulations” or fragments of thought, research, images, incantation, data, and voice as the key modality of the writing. Associative and disparate undulations allow for the form of the docupoem to resemble that of a crumbling humanity and society. The key component is research- speaking with and gathering thoughts from various scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers to gain specific context and knowledge of how climate disaster impacts Latinx communities now. These conversations will be the entire pulse of the work. With this project, I seek to honor past, present and future poetics and histories of impact of climate change to my communities.