Angela France’s distinctive new collection of poems, Terminarchy
eloquently considers the troubling terms of existence in an age of climate
catastrophe and technological change. How do we negotiate a world where
capitalism and greed threaten a fragile earth, where technology seems to
promise us connection but might also fuel isolation? Where even finding solace
in nature reminds us that the seasons can no longer be trusted? How is human
urge and want hastening us towards our own ‘endling’ – and what might it mean
to be the ‘last’?
In reframing ecopoetics in her own instinctive, radical, lyrical
form, France juxtaposes the accelerated, all-consuming speed of contemporary
and future times with the ‘longtime’ and ancient, and considers whether, rather
than collison-course, there might be a better way to coexist. Where extinction
threatens, these wry, alert poems and their eloquent, earthy voices try to find
a way through and look for hope.