heat manifesto
heat as comma, as abstraction, and something that doesn’t kill,
heat as the space before sirens, heat as turbulence, heat when it
isn’t a promise, heat that has a past, futureless heat, silent
shearing dovetail airplane heat, heat only fire, flame and orange
heat, firetruck not firewave heat, wave has nothing to do with
this heat, heat as sweat not thirst, heat as proposition, heat that
isn’t climate, heat climax, heat as music, as the air that sound
moves through, hear those heat sirens, load bearing heat, heat as
the thinness between air and body, heat that takes your clothes
off, heat substance could make sustenance, could be eaten as
humidity, but climate has nothing to do with this heat, sidewalks
were never invented for this heat, but a room and a window were
and so was a lake, heat as quenching the dark, heat before fever,
the body has something to do with this heat, heartfelt believable
heat with no books written about it, heat as process not history,
those things which don’t kill what our heartstruck bodies love.
Norah Brady
Norah Brady is a moon enthusiast from Boston, MA. Her poetry and short fiction can be found in Couplet Poetry, COUNTERCLOCK, Violet Indigo Blue Etc, and Blue Marble Review. She currently lives in Germany.
Why this Knocked Taylor Out:
First I want to say, I know that in the wake of the LA fires, this may be a tough poem for people to read. My heart goes out to those affected by the fires and I will continue to share the resources (both online and financial) that I can in the wake of the recent devastation. There really aren’t words adequate enough that I can say and I am sorry for that.
So now let's talk poetry like the world isn’t ending. Only it is. And this poem wants to remind us of that.
I really think this is just a fantastic ecopoem. The way, through anaphora, that heat becomes oppressive is so smart. Then on top of that, the variations in the repetitions add extra depth and layering. There are winks and nods toward our current political climate but they don’t overpower the heat, and they can’t, because in the wake of climate disasters arguing with idiots online doesn’t seem to matter that much does it? This poem demands that we see heat as a real and tangible force that is only going to get worse if we don’t do something. When Brady writes “heat as process not history” readers are reminded we are living this right now and…what are we going to do about it?
It's just a great eco poem. And right now we need more and more great eco poems.
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor for this poem?
I thought that Taylor was more likely to choose poems with an ecological bent, and although I feel my poetry is all over the map in terms of subject, I started writing poetry about my surroundings in the natural world, and this is always where my poetry returns.
What was the process of writing this poem like?
The process was quite fast, I knew I wanted to write a prose poem structured around the repetition of certain words, and I let the imagery that came to mind when thinking about hot weather and heat lead the poem. I wanted the language to be surprising but also tangible, so striking that balance was where most of the editing afterwards came in.
How do you see yourself and this poem in conversation with ecopoetics? Are there any ecopoets you would consider yourself in conversation with?
I wrote this poem on a particularly hot day in August 2 years ago. I think there’d been a wildfire that year in California, and the smoke had made its way to the east coast. It makes the light look totally different, but when it’s subtle, only a haze, you almost don’t notice. I was thinking about writing a poem about the sensations of heat as somehow utopian, unrelated to climate change and global warming. It’s an experiment, but also like the title suggests, a manifesto, a potential way of moving into our new world with clear eyes, not avoidance. This poem in particular is a part of a series I’m writing, imagining alternative worlds both within and apart from our current ecological moment.
In this way I feel like I’m in conversation with many poets, as I always am, those who are writing into utopia or dysptopia or anything in between. Answering this now, I thought of Ada Limón, who writes about the natural world unflinchingly. There must be some acknowledgment of the horror in our world, but there also has to be love.