The field of landscape and nature writing has seen a distinct increase in recent global popularity, what does this mean at a time of climate precarity? 

As the Poet in Residence at the Botanic Garden of the University of Dundee, this year-long residency is propelled by a desire to write-with the Garden, its visitors, and all of the other-than-human kin which inhabit this unique place. Organised into periods marked by the equinoxes and solstices the residency will loosely respond and map the seasonal passage of time. 

Throughout this period of durational response, I am curious to consider how different modes of attention might be offered with(in) the Botanic Garden as a means of learning from and with its inhabitants and visitors. I intend to further explore Harriet Tarlo’s practices of radical landscape poetry, which seeks to push past pastoral and romantic responses often associated with nature writing and ecopoetics, to address the complexities and tensions of humans with(in) landscape.1 

Propelled by a curiosity of human relationships with the world and its deeply layered iterative nature, my practice research invites speculative reimaginings of how we offer attentiveness to the places we inhabit and interact with the beings with whom we share them. I engage the dual modes of Gatherer and Constellator as a means of bringing together dissonant or disconnected materials in relation, so new or forgotten links and patterns might emerge. These emergent understandings are imbued with hope through entering a dialogue. In sharp contrast to the concept of discussion which ‘breaks things up’ through an emphasis on analysis, dialogue is, as Bohm offers, a place that produces ‘shared meaning’ which ‘holds people and societies together’.2

It is my hope that the collaborative practices engaged with(in) the Garden, will develop myriad ways of expressing the value of the natural world which paints the canvas that is the Botanic Garden.

1 Tarlo, Harriet, ed. The Ground Aslant: An Anthology Of Radical Landscape Poetry. 1. ed. Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2011.

2 Bohm, David. On Dialogue. Edited by Lee Nichol. Routledge Classics ed. Routledge Classics. London ; New York: Routledge, 2004.

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This residency is generously supported by the University of Dundee's Botanic Garden. 

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