Geopoetics: Bodies and Landscapes

‘Geopoetics’ encompasses a range of creative approaches to geography, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, geophilosophy, as well as visual and performance arts. Eric Magrane explains that a geopoetic approach focuses on “embodied engagements with place”, and demonstrates awareness of “cultural constructions of […] place, space, landscape”, practicing “a relational perspective to human–environment interactions [my italics].”[1]

In preparation for writing my MA dissertation, I looked for examples of geopoetic writing that expressed embodied empathy with landscapes. Interestingly, although perhaps not surprisingly, my research repeatedly led me to works by disabled and chronically ill writers.

In her poetry collection, ‘The Girl Who Forgets How to Walk’, Kate Davis explores the geography of south Cumbria, alongside her experiences of disability. Through finding synchronicities between local geology and her own body, Davis creates intriguing juxtapositions and fresh poetic frames for both things.

For example, in ‘Boulder Drift’, Davis compares two different names given to glacial rocks, and relates the qualities inferred in each name to different states of her body:

The men who mined here called it Pinel….
…the hint of fixing in place,
pinned on display like an insect.
She would have preferred the one
geologists gave it – Boulder Drift.
To imagine those stones suspended,
all weight gone, their pock-marked bodies
lifted and held like dancers.[2]

Through a geopoetic exploration of language, Davis reshapes how we view both the landscape and her disabled body. Boulders and disabled bodies, though usually thought of as being heavy and pinned in place, instead become beautiful, drifting dancers.

Emily Hasler produces a similar effect of embodied geological empathy in her poetry collection, ‘Local Interest.’ Here Hasler explores the history and geography of the Stour river estuary, an area just north of the Naze and Hamford Water. The poem ‘At Cobbold Point’ in particular taps into an embodied sense of emplacement, describing Hasler’s experience of swimming near a breakwater constructed from “imported Norwegian rocks which pin the shore / in place.”[3] Hasler describes the breakwater “like a curved spine/my curved spine / breaking the water.” Through using recurring verbs that relate to both her own body and the movements of silt around the pinned shoreline – moving, accreting, eroding, thinking, coasting – Hasler builds a cycle of mirroring resonances that connect her intrinsically to her environment:

I am accreting thoughts… The coast, for the most part, is thinking… Coast is what I swim, what I think, moving in more than one direction.

These poetry collections helped me feel into how I might be able to articulate commonalities between my own body and local landscape - the eroding coast at Walton-on-the-Naze and the flooding of its adjoining backwaters, Hamford Water. 

In both the essays and poems of ‘Inundation’, I sought out verbs to describe shared experiences between me and the coast. At the end of the essay, ‘Erosion’, for example, I realise my own ‘verb-nature’ through reflecting on the ever-changing physical forms of the eroding cliff. The title of the poem ‘Nazing’ is itself a verbing of the landscape – my attempt to express the emotional and physiological effects that spending time at the Naze was having. By referring to my body as becoming more like the Naze – that it was nazing – I am conveying the healing effect of imagining my body becoming yielding like the cliffs, rather than hard with tension like the seawall.

Further inspired by Davis and Hasler, I also experimented with using historical and geological information to form poems. For example, Davis forms a poem from a geological quarter sheet from 1873, even naming the poem ‘Explanation of quarter sheet 91 N.W.’ In a similar vein, my poem ‘Tidal Refrains’ uses excerpts from Hilda Grieve’s The Great Tide: The Story of the 1953 Flood Disaster in Essex to collate a brief overview of the history of flooding on the Essex coastline, as well as peoples cyclical surprise at each flooding event.  With this poem, my aim was to highlight what geologist, Marcia Bjornerud refers to as our “temporal illiteracy”[4]: while reading Grieve’s account of Essex seawall construction, I was struck by the repetitious comments about the height of the flood tides; there seemed to be no significant ancestral or cultural knowledge about the flood-prone nature of the coastal regions, and rather than accepting the nature of these places, landowners simply put more effort into dominating them, building higher and stronger seawalls. As Bjornerud argues, “we accelerate into landscapes and ecosystems with no sense of their long-established traffic patterns, and then react with surprise and indignation when we face the penalties for ignoring natural laws.” 

Now, as we face our uncertain future in the Anthropocene, it is more important than ever to recognise, respect, and attune to environmental patterns. As writers and artists, taking a geopoetic approach seems a wonderful way of developing and promoting this awareness of the landscapes we shape, and are shaped by.

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My collection of essays and poems, Inundation is now available in paperback and ebook.

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[1] Eric Magrane, “Climate Geopoetics (the earth is a composted poem),” Dialogues in Human Geography 11, no. 1 (2021): 11, https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620908390

[2] Kate Davis, “Boulder Drift,” in The Girl Who Forgets How to Walk (London: Penned in the Margins, 2018), 51.

[3] Emily Hasler, “At Cobbold Point” in Local Interest (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023), 8.

[4]Marcia Bjornerud, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 7.

Painting with London Clay

The Naze is a fast-eroding headland near my home in north Essex. I'm falling in love with it. In fact, I find it so wonderful I've decided to write my master's dissertation about it. 

The Naze, Essex

When I was walking at the Naze the other day, I had taken a small paintbrush with me. I wanted to experiment with painting with the London Clay. This is my first attempt. 

It worked better than I expected! My hope is to experiment more with it on future walks - maybe try to paint some portraits of the overwintering birds, like this speedy little Turnstone!

Finding Home: Geomagnetic Migration in Marine Animals – and Human Impacts

Image credit: Tony Hisgett

I find the link between biology and geology endlessly fascinating – how animals (including us humans) are shaped and influenced by the Earth’s physics, and vice versa. Among the many aspects of this co-evolutionary relationship, something I find particularly intriguing is the ability of some species to use geomagnetic navigation. Magnetoreception – the ability to sense a magnetic field – has been observed across a wide range of living beings, from bacteria to cetaceans. However, given that human activity can influence geomagnetic fields, it also concerns me that we are interfering with the ability of other species to navigate their environments.

This blog post is adapted from an essay I wrote as a first-year student of BSc Marine Biology. Although I switched degrees, and therefore never made it past the first year, my fascination with these topics has remained, as has my desire to share that fascination with others.

So first, a short explanation of some of the research. A key hypothesis concerning geomagnetic migration is the concept of imprinting: scientists believe this is what happens when an animal becomes attuned to a specific location on the Earth’s magnetic field. This imprint would explain how marine animals are able to return so precisely to their places of birth after spending time in the vast open ocean. A growing body of research is demonstrating that this hypothesis is an accurate one. For example, because the Earth’s magnetic fields move and vary in intensity, it was hypothesised that if imprinting does occur, changes in the magnetic fields would influence natal homing routes. Data analysis of loggerhead sea turtles on the Florida coast does indeed show that slight changes in the geomagnetic field result in similar changes in nesting density.[1] Likewise, researchers analysing 56 years-worth of fisheries data found that magnetic intensity around Vancouver Island influenced whether sockeye salmon chose a northerly or southerly migratory route back to their spawning site.[2] Both studies suggest that animals migrate towards the geomagnetic signature they have been imprinted with, rather than the exact geographical location. In other words, where these animals nest or spawn is influenced by shifts in the magnetic field.

Main Compass Rose from Carta del Cantino

A variety of biophysical mechanisms that make geomagnetic navigation possible have been proposed. These include the biological presence of magnetite crystals: a magnetically-sensitive mineral which has been found in many species, including in the human brain.[3] Additionally, a study by Vidal-Gadea et al. found that nematodes (microscopic roundworms) have specific neurons which enable geomagnetic orientation. And Hiscock et al. propose that migratory birds are able to navigate the Earth’s magnetic fields due to quantum mechanical spin occurring in proteins called cryptochromes, which are found in the birds’ eyes.

One of the challenges faced by researchers in this field of study is that it requires cross-overs from many disciplines, including geology, biology, physics and, as just mentioned, even quantum mechanics. Another difficulty lies in how we determine the human impact on geomagnetic navigation in marine animals. Research into how human activity affects electromagnetic fields in the oceans is lacking, in part because the mechanisms by which marine animals use this field is itself not fully understood.

However, there is enough evidence to show that further research is much needed. For example, transmission cables from offshore wind farms have been found to alter localised magnetic fields. Although research suggests that the field of influence from wind farms is not far-reaching, there is not yet sufficient evidence to dismiss the potential of negative impact on marine migrations. In fact, some research does show that the presence of transmission cables changes foraging and resting behaviours in some species.[4] Additionally, research at the Mario Zucchelli Station on the Antarctic coast has shown that the station affects the local magnetic field up to a distance of 650 metres below ground,[5] thus demonstrating the extent to which large coastal or offshore structures can influence the magnetic field.

Further to this, research by Gieré highlights the problem of magnetite nanoparticles in atmospheric pollution, raising concerns about the potential of increased sensitivity to electromagnetic fields for humans and other animals. Whilst no research seems to have been carried out to investigate the effects of magnetite pollution on migratory marine animals, the use of magnetite has been proposed by researchers as a possible agent in clearing marine oil spills. Human pollution could have the potential to influence magnetic sensitivity of marine animals via bioaccumulation of magnetite, although there is currently no evidence for this.

When it comes to offshore wind farms, research into the negative impact on marine life may prove both publicly and politically unpopular, given that wind power has become emblematic of the modern environmental movement. Likewise, research into the negative impacts of clearing oil spills with magnetite may seem inconvenient to some. However, it is important that, in our efforts to create more harmonious relationships with our surroundings, we strive to make genuinely environmentally-friendly choices, and not simply content ourselves with solutions that are ideologically or politically appealing.

Earth systems are so complex, in ways that can both fascinate and bewilder us. Understanding how to align ourselves better with them requires humility on our part and a consistent openness to learning more - always learning more.

[1] Brothers, J.R. and Lohmann, K.J. (2015) ‘Evidence for Geomagnetic Imprinting and Magnetic Navigation in the Natal Homing of Sea Turtles.’ Current Biology. 25 (3). 392 – 396. [2] Putman, N.F., et al. (2015) ‘Evidence for Geomagnetic Imprinting as a Homing Mechanism in Pacific Salmon.’ Current Biology. 23. 312 – 316. [3] Gieré, R. (2016) ‘Magnetite in the human body: Biogenic vs. anthropogenic.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113 (43). 11986 – 11987. [4] Hutchison, Zoe L., et al. (2020) 'Anthropogenic electromagnetic fields (EMF) influence the behaviour of bottom-dwelling marine species.' Scientific Reports, 10, 4219. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60793-x [5] Armadillo, E., et al. (2012) ‘Impact of Human Activities on the Geomagnetic Field of Antarctica: A High Resolution Aeromagnetic Survey Over Mario Zucchelli Station.’ Environment International. 47. 1 – 7.

References:

Armadillo, E., E. Bozzo, M. Gambetta, and D. Rizzello. ‘Impact of Human Activities on the Geomagnetic Field of Antarctica: A High Resolution Aeromagnetic Survey Over Mario Zucchelli Station.’ Environment International, v. 47 (2012), pp. 1 – 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2012.05.005

Atta, Ayman M., Hamad A. Al-Lohedan, and Sami A. Al-Hussain. ‘Functionalization of Magnetite Nanoparticles as Oil Spill Collector.’ International Journal of Molecular Sciences, v.16, no. 4 (2015), pp. 6911 – 6931. https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/16/4/6911

Brothers, J. Roger. and Kenneth J. Lohmann. ‘Evidence for Geomagnetic Imprinting and Magnetic Navigation in the Natal Homing of Sea Turtles.’ Current Biology, v. 25, no. 3 (2015), pp. 392 – 396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.12.035

Gieré, Reto. ‘Magnetite in the human body: Biogenic vs. anthropogenic.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v. 113, no. 43 (2016), pp. 11986 – 11987. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1613349113

Hiscock, H. G., Worster, S., Kattnig, D.R., Steers, C., Jin, Y., Manolopoulos, D. E., Mouritsen, H. and Hore, P. J. (2016) ‘Quantum needle of the avian magnetic compass.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hutchison, Zoe L., Andrew B. Gill, Peter Sigray, Haibo He and John W. King. 'Anthropogenic electromagnetic fields (EMF) influence the behaviour of bottom-dwelling marine species.' Scientific Reports, 10, 4219 (2020) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60793-x

Kirschvink, J. L., Walker, M. M. and Diebel, C. E. (2001) ‘Magnetite-based magnetoreception.’ Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 11 (4). 462 – 467.

Otremba, Z. and Andrulewicz, E. (2015) ‘Physical Fields During Construction and Operation of Wind Farms by Example of Polish Maritime Areas.’ Polish Maritime Research. 3. 113 –122.

Putman, N.F., Lohmann, K.J., Putman, E.M., Quinn, T.P., Klimley, A.P. and Noakes, D.L.G. (2015) ‘Evidence for Geomagnetic Imprinting as a Homing Mechanism in Pacific Salmon.’ Current Biology. 23. 312 – 316.

Vidal-Gadea, A., Ward, K., Beron, C., Ghorashian, N., Gokce, S., Russell, J., Truong, N., Parikh, A., Gadea, O., Ben-Yakar, A. and Pierce-Shimomura, J. (2015) ‘Magnetosensitive Neurons Mediate Geomagnetic Orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans.’ eLife. DOI:10.7554/eLife.07493 3