american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

EMBODIED AGENCY 59
entire civilization “devoid of sensibility of and respect for other life
forms, mindlessly engulfed in its own destructiveness” (235).
The poem is most encompassing and oppositional when Snyder
draws a parallel between environmental destruction and sick country.
When the “jets crack sound overhead,” the speaker responds with the
startling “it’s OK here” as if the jets represented a sustainable natural
order. The remainder of this stanza, though, shows a much different
reality: “Every pulse of the rot at the heart / In the sick fat veins of
Amerika / Pushes the edge up closer.” This “edge” is the cancer that
“swells” across the land in the first line of the poem; America is rotting
due to its disregard for the earth. This “rot” is not only visible on
the earth’s scarred surface; it is also an internal condition that
makes sick the earth’s circulation, its ability to sustain itself. Here,
Snyder is prescient in his claim that America’s development is not
sustainable, currently the buzz-word and development strategy par
excellence among environmental studies scholars and planners. “Front
Lines” suggests that America’s reckless development practices are
unsustainable, violent.
The speaking voice in this poem is obviously confrontational,
especially in its visceral, unforgiving imagery and in its extended
metaphors of rape and war. But the way that Snyder frames this opposition
in terms of political agency is his most effective technique.
Rather than simply outrage readers, many of whom are probably
already environmentally conscious, Snyder opens and closes the poem
with the voice of collective experience and agency. In the first stanza,
“we feel / a foul breeze” from the cancer. This outrage and the
agency needed to oppose it are collective rather than individual. As
most environmental organizers claim, a single individual modifying
her behavior, consumer decisions, or practices will not impact environmental
issues. If I refrain from driving a car it will have no discernible
effect on global climate change. Any such effect would result
only from macro policy decisions and enforcement.
Snyder concludes the final stanza with a call to collective action in
the front lines of environmental activism. On one side of this wellmarked
“line” is “a forest that goes to the Arctic / And a desert that
still belongs to the Piute.” On the other side, bulldozers, chainsaws,
and realty companies rape the land. The line that must be drawn is
obvious. The speaker imagines a collective of environmental defenders
standing with the forest and desert behind them. According to the
speaker, it is “here” that “we must draw / Our line.” Snyder’s “we”
creates both an authority more powerful than a single speaking
“I” and a collective and mobilizing framework for environmental