A wake-up call from an award-winning poet at Live@Lanier

In the poem “Erosion” from his new book, “Anthropocene Blues,” Professor John Lane, award-winning writer, asks:

“Is geology the story we should put our hominid minds to?

Is the Anthropocene us or are we all? Is geology poetry?

Is the latest species’ cha-cha toward oblivion our unrattled success?

Is this age the joke our sapien ancestors wouldn’t get?”

Lane, professor of English and environmental studies and director of Wofford College’s Environmental Studies Center, will offer answers to these and other questions with thoughts and readings from his “Anthropocene Blues,” at Live@Lanier, Thursday, Jan. 25 at 6 p.m.

The Pleistocene era of wooly mammoths evolved into the Holocene that includes all of written history. In 2000, atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen popularized Anthropocene as the name of the current era when human activities profoundly impact environmental processes. While not yet recognized as the official term, Anthropocene is common in the discussions of geoscientists and ecologists. Debates continue over start dates ranging from Neolithic agriculture to the Industrial Revolution, to the first nuclear explosion, July 16, 1945.

As a poet, Lane sings the blues of this new era in a wake-up call of road kill, diesel fuel, fouled streams, and tax shelters. In 72 pages, we experience wood pulp books decaying on shelves, appliances littering beaches, and business districts of despair. We also hear songbirds in the South and feel the wonder of Mitchell Peak in Wyoming’s Wind River.

“Anthropocene Blues” points to our shortcomings as well as the beauty that surrounds us. Embrace our place and time in nature with Professor Lane at Lanier Library, 72 Chestnut St., Tryon. You may also want to visit the recently donated 2,800 books of the Felburn Nature Collection in the LeDuc Room. Or for more information visit the library online at www.thelanierlibrary/org.

– submitted by Vincent Verrecchio