Selected Chapter Summaries
“Sometimes you have to dig….”
Sometimes you have to dig for hope
Alice Major
Beautiful poem and text on geothermal energy and carbon capture, with a lot of descriptions of geology and references to Greek mythology. It has a primal feel and focuses on hope.
Challenging Times
Larry Kapustka in Collaboration with Jared Tailfeathers
This text takes Blackfoot words/concepts and weaves them into ecological ones from Western science. With these words, Larry constructs a sestina of 6 stanzas. It is followed by a text on many topics around climate change and energy transition. It may be one of the more challenging texts to read, but it seems a good one as an introduction, creating a holistic overview. It was a contender for opening, but I decided to put Alice’s piece first, as I deemed her writing a better ease into the book than Larry’s piece.
On the lure of multiple instances
Personal essay about growing up in the prairie immersed in nature and the presence of pump jacks. Follows nicely on the short, personal piece by Kim and leads to the following poems on oil and oil culture. Text in final form.
Boys in the patch
Essay on hypermasculinity in petroculture.
Cling Wrap Made to Break
Natalie Meisner
Poems on our pervasive use of plastics and planned obsolescence and consumption of products. Final form.
Dear Alfah
Barb Howard
A clever series of letters is written in a future time, when the transition to another type of society has happened, with the older letter-writer still being nostalgic and defensive about the past and a young niece living the new type of life in a hotter environment.
The World beneath Our Feet
Rosemary Griebel
Well-researched text and poem on soil health, its carbon capture qualities and regenerative farming. Wonderful piece in the collection. Text in final from-some restructuring into endnotes.
In Transition
Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon
Personal narrative of worries and fears from a new young mother, followed by thoughts on food security and growing her own food with entries in a diary following the Chinese lunar calendar. Some thoughts on energy poverty. This text is still being revised with additional writing on food security.
The In-Between People(short story)
Emma Gammans
Short story, set in the future, on energy poverty. Slightly apocalyptic; good intro into the next one. This text is still being revised with small edits.
Carbuncle
Peter Midgley
Very apocalyptic, dark and surrealistic fantasy story.
A hundred years from now.
Mark Hopkins
Essay with an apocalyptic start, then discussion.
Fireflies
Uchechukwu Umezurike
Short story, mildly apocalyptic, but with hope, featuring the importance of children and their imagination for the future.
A Foot Each in Two Canoes
Elders with the Sun
Michael Leeb
Poems on reconciliation and life on the margins and energy transition of indigenous communities. Second poem is inspired by the phrase that “the bison is like a solar battery” by Diandra bruisedhead.
How Can the Future Go Really, Really, Well?
Maggie Hanna
Written in a flow-of-consciousness way, fellow Maggie Hanna gives a summary of her presentation: what causes climate change, what actions we can take to mitigate and what should the future look like.
