Immanuel Mifsud King Macbeth receives a strange warning through a vision conjured by three weird hags: should Birnam wood move, you’re in for big big trouble; basically that’ll spell the end of you. And then one day a messenger rushes in breathlessly announcing the forest is actually moving, prompting the King to look through a window, to see for himself that the forest is marching towards Dunsinane.
His Majesty’s H-hour in the final act of Macbeth somehow comes to mind each time I read about how the Sahara is spreading, expanding, invading the areas adjacent to it. And that, of course, includes Malta. While working on the anthology about climate change (Riħ Min-Nofshinhar, Edizzjoni Skarta 2008) with Adrian Grima, I felt disturbed with the observations of a local harvester: nowadays the South wind blows more frequently than before, and it carries with it sand from the Sahara which, in turn, covers and kills off the fine soil. Like Birnam wood, the desert approaches menacingly thanks to a series of environmental crises (for instance deforestation) which have a domino effect leading to catastrophe. Local harvesters are only too conscious how rapidly the climate is changing. They are also conscious of the adverse effects this change has on their crops.
Already in the eighties some Maltese poets were voicing their concern with the way our authorities were treating the environment. Foremost among these writers was Victor Fenech, whose prose poem “Tradiment” (Betrayal) can be considered as a perfect illustration of the angry-green poetry. Here the lone poet ventures to speak out against the bulldozing of the countryside, but, echoing Christ in the garden of olives, he begs off his former plea to be heeded by the almighty, cinically conceding that cash rules everything around him, that the pen is definitely not mightier than the dollar. Victor Fenech writes of betrayal: the supremos have betrayed the earth and those keeping their mouths shut are supporting the crisis. Indeed, however forcefully the poets speak, their poetry is never cogent enough to bring about the desired changes. Despite Fenech’s and other writers’ warnings, their words go unheeded.
A couple of years ago, Lloyd’s Insurance launched a climate change awareness campaign in the UK, commissioning poets from the Poet in the City group to write poems on this crucial issue. The outcome was the collection Trees in the City (2007), featuring poems by Patience Agbabi, John Burnside and Matthew Hollis. The latter, who I have met in 2004 during a poetry festival in Slovenia, writes haunting messages cleverly camouflaged by romance or an infantile setting such as:
‘Liturgy and penance’, say the Bells of St Clement’s.
‘Storms and wild winds’, say the Bells of St Martin’s.
‘Save the Square Mile’, say the Bells of St Giles.
‘Marsh land and fens’, say the Bells of St Helen’s.
‘What will secure me?’ say the Bells of Old Bailey.
‘A darn and a stitch’, say the Bells of Shoreditch.
‘What can I see?’ say the Bells of Stepney.
‘Flood, rain and snow’, say the Great Bells of Bow.
Here comes the fire to light up your bed
Here comes the water to cover your head.
Fire wind quake flood – the last one, the last one is dead.
(“London Bells”)
And this is “37˚C” by Patience Agbabi:
We made him out of love
and like our love he grew
inside me where I loved
and fed and watered him
until he grew too big
for love to keep him in
and so I let him out
and loved him skin to skin
and yet I was afraid
each breath would injure him,
that air was full of taint,
that he would sink not swim,
afraid each peekaboo
of sun would burn his skin,
that it was not enough
to give the earth to him.
Green poetry is so full of fear and despair, it transmits doom which can be translated into a lack of hope in politicians and capitalists who repeatedly have shown how inert and unwilling they are in taking action against global disaster.
Green poets together with environmentalists and scientists have been rushing in the King’s hall, warning His Majesty of the approach of a cataclysmic Birnam wood, but the King, so far, has refused to take them seriously.
Immanuel Mifsud (1967) writes poetry and prose. In 2008 he teamed up with fellow writer Adrian Grima to publish Riħ Min-Nofsinhar, an anthology of poems and short essays about climate change, which was reviewed by Anthony Cassar in World Literature Today. This book can be ordered online through Sierra Books Ltd, info@sierra-books.com
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