A Lexicon of Man-Made Dangers: Review of Watch Your Head
Edited by Kathryn Mockler, Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis.
Coach House Books, 2020. $23.95 CAD.
Buy a copy from Coach House Books.
“A warning. A movement. A collection borne of protest.” These words, printed in bold on the back cover of Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis, a print anthology dedicated to fostering and broadcasting artistic responses to the climate crisis, succinctly sums up the history of the project.
The concept for a space dedicated to poetry, prose and art in dialogue with the current climate situation began at a protest in September of 2019. There, poet Kathryn Mockler was joined by writers Margaret Christakos, Adam Giles, Catherine Graham, Hege Jakobsen Lepri, Khashayar Mohammadi, Terese Mason Pierre, Rasqira Revulva, and Todd Westcott, in a “moving and powerful” poetry reading addressing the climate crisis.
Originally housed online, Watch Your Head is an ongoing project. In the print anthology, published by Coach House Books in June 2020, eighty-four writers come together to continue the work of responding and calling attention to the climate crisis — and in doing so, make a striking case for climate justice activism. As mentioned in the anthology’s introduction, the moniker of “Watch Your Head” is borrowed from caution signs that “warn those in the vicinity of known and preventable dangers in the hopes of avoiding a catastrophic event” (9).
If the past year and a half have taught us anything, it’s that the conditions of life on Earth are ever-changing — and so are our reactions to them. The anthology’s first poem, “We Will Tell Them of Our Dominion,” by Terese Mason Pierre presents a modest hopefulness that sets the reader up for a journey across the spectrum of (climate) pessimism and optimism. The order in which the works are presented is no accident — the sequence of poems, short prose, and visual art is diversified enough to keep the reader intrigued, but it also follows a sinuous, subtle progression that takes us from moments of hope to despair, with little room for breath.
The absence of obvious recurring patterns, owing to each writer’s distinct style, creates a welcome feeling of disparateness. No one literary or poetic style reigns here: the works range from short and abstract (“’r’=’v’” by Oan Avasilichioaei and Erín Moure) to long, meandering, and exploratory, such as Simone Dalton’s “Notes from a Small Place.”
The sky, the ocean, the clouds, and the trees are arguably main characters in this anthology; predictably, the natural environment takes on a central role in many of the works, alternating from an artifact to be protected to an unpredictable force to be reckoned with. From “fifty-six glaciers gone in ten years” (68) in Nicole Brossard’s “As Long As” poem to “the ocean is still this morning” (82) in Carleigh Baker’s “Grey Water” prose piece, nature’s great unknown is revered and admired; the elements are to be respected, not abused.
A lexicon of man-made dangers soon brings the reader back down to Earth (so to speak): “Spilled/on the rug’s polymer” (46) in Rae Armantrout’s “On Growth” poem, “Carbon monoxide, methane, oxides” in Ching-In Chen’s “Lanter Letter: a Zhuitsu” prose piece , or “bulldozers/in the olive grove” (168) in Anna Swanson’s “I Am Writing A Spell for Your Nervous System” poem remind us of the startling ways in which humans have altered the planet.
In Watch Your Head, the CEOs largely responsible for continuous waste and capital accruing are called out — such as “Bezos, Gates, Wallberg […] /who offer such drab death/ to everyone” (121) in Erin Robinsong’s “Anemone,” and the environmental disasters we hear about on the news are mentioned casually— which only seems to reinforce their significance. The cynicism feels oddly cathartic: we’ve all been thinking it, and it’s nice to hear it aloud (or on the page). And as Trynne Delaney’s “Climate Anxiety” poignantly puts it in one of my favourite lines: “it’s all pretty bleak/but you know, uh/ life, uh, finds a way” (133).
Though poetry and short prose loom large, works of visual art are interspersed throughout Watch Your Head, providing respite from the written word and immersing us in their own language. From Sarah Mangle’s “Weird” comic addressing the absurdity of small-talk about climate change, to Gaye Jackson’s “Erratics #4 and #8” photographs, depicting rocks that have been moved from their original environment by glaciers, the visual works are as thought-provoking as the rest of the anthology. One standout piece, Aude Moreau’s “The Blue Line”, features a two-page spread of the New York City skyline, with a line marking the projected sea level if Earth’s ice were to melt. By blending these striking images into the collection, Watch Your Head ensures that the climate crisis’s gravity is steeped into the reader’s mind.
Surprisingly, love is also a common thread in the collection. The theme of sacrifice, as in sacrificing oneself, or being on the receiving end of another’s sacrifice, looms large, as many of us consider the conveniences we may have to give up in order to extend human life on Earth. Towards the end of the collection, one comes to an inevitable reckoning — the current situation is so dire that children and teenagers are having to plead for government action to improve their chances of a future. “O darlins/ when hasn’t life been expendable?” (72) asks Kirby in “I Never Got Over Sixty Likes.” Our livelihoods are inevitably prey to capitalism, and this fact underwrites Watch Your Head.
Despite the guiding thread that unites the anthology, each individual work is a world in itself — one plunges deep into a short story, only to emerge finding that the next universe lies in a poem on an adjacent page. Watch Your Head demands attention, demands to be sat with for a long period of time. I often found myself having to take a breather between pieces in order to fully appreciate the magnitude of what was being addressed. Though it’s not an easy read, it’s an absolutely necessary one. Ultimately, the anthology helps us to realize — on an emotional level— that we are living through a critical moment, a diverging point. What we do with this “feeling” is left up to us.
Proceeds from the print anthology are donated to Raven, a fundraising platform in partnership with Indigenous Nations, and to Climate Crisis Toronto. The Watch Your Head website continues to be updated with new work — submissions are accepted on watchyourhead.ca.
Elena Senechal-Becker is a writer and editor living in Toronto.