“We are as gods. We might as well get good at it.” — Stewart Brand
“This has been the time of the finishing off of the animals. They are going away - their fur and their wild eyes,
their voices…I don’t know if the animals are capable of reproach.
But clearly they do not bother to say good-bye.” — Hayden Carruth“Compared to the people, the planet is doing great: been here four and a half billion years! … The planet isn’t going anywhere; we are!… just another evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas...” — George Carlin
The term Anthropocene denotes the current period of Earth’s geologic history in which our species is leaving evidence of its presence in geologic strata. Though this term is not formally accepted by the scientific community, it has become popularized. Is it self-delusional to name a geologic period for a species that has existed for only 1/50,000 of Earth’s history? With a nod to meme culture, I might as well call the current era the Hubriscene, Plasticene, Narcissicene, Entropicene or Oblivicene. Many of this exhibit’s mixed media works depicts animals separated from their natural habitat by intentional or incidental human action. We are the only species with the capacity to reflect on and control out planetary impacts, yet we choose otherwise.
To complement the artwork, I asked local poets, ranging from 14 to 79 years old, to write short poems stimulated by their reactions to different pieces. I wanted to create an opportunity for them to offer perspectives about the planet’s conditions that current generations are leaving for future generations. I added a poem of my own at the end of the commissioned poems. This project is supported by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Maryland.
THE MATCH WE’VE LIT
tiger
tiger
burning
bright
will you see tomorrow's light?
once you roamed through forest deep
now the grass and trees all weep
smoke has choked the emerald air
rivers vanish
roots are bare
what we built with steel and fire
feeds a world that grows more dire
your stripes
once strength
now blur in flames
and you have only us to blame
you aren't a predator
but a victim here
you are not the one to fear
tiger
tiger
burning
bright
you haunt our dreams
demand our sight
will we douse the match we’ve lit
or let the world collapse with it?
by Elina Chang
THIS VIEW
“There is grandeur in this view of life”
— Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
[Framed] this light [before] our eyes
a [species] capable of [presenting]
[figures] able to be seen by a [species]
capable of seeing the ends of lines
[converging in cuts] before a frightened
creature [captured here] in the light
from which we all [emerged] as children
of a million suns [there is grandeur]
in this view [that sees] with common
[primate eyes] a species capable of
[reflection] able to [look back] and ask
[How did I get here?]
By Henry Crawford
634
only the guilty ask -
how could we have known?
- when their knowledge fills the vast
skies and their awareness seeps
through bedrock to poison
the very land they claim.
- how could we have known? -
words written and spoken
over the bones that spell their
mutual destruction if only they knew
how to read them.
an omen that they burned
the knowledge of in hopes
of robbing its power and
blunting its vengeance.
death begets death who
in turn begat death
from now until the end.
- how could we have known? -
what a question to ask
with bloodstained hands raised
in a benediction they do not mean.
what a demand to make
to seek a response from a world
they believe cannot speak.
By Zachary Jones Gomez
OZYMANDIAS REVISITED
I met a traveller from a plastic land,
who said—“Two soulless windows dropped
on the desert. . . . Behind them, from the sand,
a shattered visage rises, whose crown,
and upturned lips, and smile of gold outstand,
tell that its sculptor well those compassions read
which yet survive, among silicone things;
The hand that sculpted them, the heart that bled;
And on the storefront these words appear:
Dairy Dream; Buy One Get One Free;
Feed Your Cravings and Ignore Despair!"
Everything new remains, while the ancient decays;
And colossal Tech, boundless and bare, devours
land, water and attention, and spits out Data.
By Sharon Neubauer
PLEA
I want to write a poem about gorillas swinging from the branches of baphia nitida trees
and finding yellow-orange papayas in the brush with agile lips
and picking parasites and dirt and debris from the fur of their babies. I want to write a poem
about a mama playing tag with her infant in the dappled light of the forest,
any forest, I’m not particular. I am tired of writing poems like this one,
poems about gorillas being shot or hunted
or stuffed into cages to be grinned at through the glass by children with lollipops.
When will zookeepers learn you can’t lay down a square
of turf into a room and call it a home?
I want to look into the eyes of a gorilla
and see them alive. I promise: bring him home and he will remember
himself again. It is not hard for a gorilla to be happy. It is not hard––not to press
the trigger on a tranquilizer dart. Let him swing, just once,
from the branches of a baphia nitida––
and watch, just watch, how fast the sorrow leaves his eyes
By Tara Prakash
NO LONGER OURS
A land once ours is no longer. The ground beneath us still firm and green with new growth and bloom. The sky and horizon comprise a landscape as uncertain as it is foreboding, muddied by pollution, oil, and grease of unnatural origin.
All things manmade ensnare, rendering a hollowed landscape. Claiming nature as conquest. A species insistent on domination - over one another, over all things innocent and fragile. Independent thought and higher consciousness apparently having given way to catastrophe and carnage.
There unfortunately lies no end in sight, sources of respite dwindle. Refuge no more.
By Suzanne Fine
UNAWARE
I too have been lying on my bedroom floor
telling myself the butterflies of panic in my belly are the pollinators of a new future
On other days it has occurred to me that we might not see it
no matter how many times we read UN declarations
exhibits at the Natural History Museum
We haven’t bothered to look up from that fragrant pool
where we can see a world we have created in our own image
Our blindness a phantasmagoria of color
the enticing ocean of denial shows us ourselves;
light of consciousness
luminous narcissus
Before we were born we might have been aware
we have forgotten or perhaps we have never known
It bears down
the beating of the wings mistaken for a breeze during an (un)commonly hot October
On the other side of the glass case I scream
run, I say
can’t you see it, I ask
And he answers:
‘I thought you said you were blind?’
I wake up
to feel the beating of wings on my face
the ceiling fan cuts through the thick air
blindness is resplendent with color
By Anani Centani
SAFARI SERENADE
In my eight decades long and lucky life.
I’ve traveled round the globe seen peace and strife.
I’ve lived in huts and castles by the sea
met with villagers and chiefs, just little me.
My favorite hotel room’s safari tents
by riverside amidst the wild scents
of lounging leopards, hippos and aardvarks
their scary sounds abound throughout the parks.
Life lessons I have learned amongst these beasts
as witness to their devastating feasts
the plodding lines of migratory herds
accompanied by brightly colored birds.
It’s Nature day by day that tells the tale
And in the end it’s Nature that prevails.
By Ada Jo Mann
CO-EVOLUTION
Two hearts, pulsate, throb,
thrive, drive, strive, connive, revive,
beat as one, survive.
Primates and wolves co-evolve
humans and dog co-revolve
by Mark Pierzchala
SUNKEN
The heat and the chill
Shook the Earth
As the ground split
And her world shattered.
The sea, dangerous and beautiful,
Spilled out of her.
We forgot she was ever here,
Thinking only what is
Could be what once was.
We cherish the fields and flowers,
But fear the storms and tigers
Majesties destined to grow apart.
Today, the world explores her scars
And she remembers.
The world tugs at the edges of disaster,
Tempting fate
With the laxity and ignorance she used to hold,
And she remembers.
Will it happen again,
Nobody knows.
But for now, her scars are hidden
Leagues below
Still water
That runs deep.
By Willa McMickle
SEPTEMBER 2100
Last leaves yellow like fading bruises, dangle
in heavy air and hot wind, then flood the pond.
Roots find much too much water in marshy ground.
Poets once said trees speak to each other. Alone,
this tree gasps. Maple, apple, white oak, all gone.
The old woman swallows pills, washes them down
with Coke. Then laughs at ghosts’ tales of the future,
remembers running outside, eating ripe fruit,
drinking tap water, counting the trees that hid
the pond from her, August sun pushing past clouds.
Algae blooms on water-logged lawn, turns it green.
By Marianne Szlyk
.
LEAFY FOSSIL MARGINS SPEAK
This certain immortality
in an uncertain mortality
of our fragile leafy forms.
This time promises finality
despite fate’s peculiarity
of our shifting surging storms.
Thus echo faint fossil imprints
in an ancient future’s waiting room —
What marks will we leave? For whom?
by Neha Misra
DWELLERS
we claim all as our own
displace species and forests
yet we are dwellers
this planet pre-existed us
and will outlive us
continents merge then break apart
Earth’s core in motion
tectonic plates oceans
magnetic fields
we stand on one fragile iteration
when the tsunami comes
wildfires blaze
volcanos erupt
we must be humble
let earthquakes rumble through us
flames sear us
salute the sun
dance in the rain
bask in shade
soothe in waters
sweat in heat
shiver in cold
succumb
flex our contours
to the shapes
of the ever-shifting Earth
By Yvette Neisser
GLITTER AND BOMBS
Looking up… dark sky
night. strange whirring blurring the normal chatter behind her ears.
She. Kept. Looking. Up.
Bright glitter bursting through the darkness– oranges and browns, blues and greys spread like stars among the deep black sky. Exploding almost like fireworks.
Looking up. Her breath is stolen from her lungs: gasping pleading
but still her neck strains, eyes pointing upward unmoving
The man made above reminds her of the final autumn leaves, blinding oranges, falling gently on the earth– last colors smothered by cold, stark, and unforgiving snow, cold shivering
down
her
spine.
Forever and always the stark blue-white lands a top Smothering the last beauty. Jack o lanterns rotted, the final taste of pumpkin cinnamon rolls only a ghost on her lips
The whirring that was blurring continued, so strange in her ears turned to a
click, click
until
pop, pop, pop
An explosion rang in her ears.
Glitter turned to icy hot fire, smothering her.
Bang. Bang. Bang. All that is left is the deep black behind her eyelids
nothing like the sky she desperately craved another bite of.
By Gabriella Stein
500 MILLION YEARS AGO, TORRENTIAL RAINS ERODE YOUNG AVALONIA
Forms of young life swam in ancient seas as rain like Anvils from the sky fell stintless down upon the Barren cliffs of Avalon. Years and years and
Without cease, storms in sequence tore the crags of Dark Archean hills to shards of ancient pebbles Worn down by time and rain to gravel, grit and
Sand, and down again to sand and silt. Muddy layers meters thick filled the shallow oceans. Greater forces baked to stone the thick dark dust of
Avalon. Skies with soft striations mute the Slow, erosive grind of rain. Fish and mollusks, early plants, then early reptiles, and the mammals come and go.
The sea-laid rocks of Avalon are now upon Their sides in sunlight pitched, rising up from surf toward sky. The bi-ped, likewise upright, walks the hills alone Atop these cockeyed stripes of stone.
by Stewart Hickman
SOLASTALGIA
My condolences children,
So sorry for your loss
Of which you are unaware.
But maybe you suspect the cost.
Nobody asked me to care.
Grandpa told us stories:
About backyards lit by fireflies
Milky Way’s glow in night skies
Bug spattered windshields
Snowy winter’s stillness.
It’s all too much for me to grasp.
One year’s not so different from the last.
Conditioned air still fit to breathe,
Watching nature specials on TV,
Kudzu tendrils blanketing me.
When Thwaites Glacier broke free
Surprised penguins leapt to sea.
Way too hot to go outside.
Am I complicit with ecocide?
Why bother to recall
That which pains us all?
Though my cells won’t forget
Those eons they once met.
by Keith Kozloff
Anani Centeno is a novelist, essayist and poet from Maryland. She writes about the intersection of political repression, resilience and the fragility of human existence through the lens of fiction. Some of her short stories and essays are found on her substack: SUBSTACK.COM/@ANANIKAIKE
Elina Chang is a student at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School. Her poetry has been featured in the University of Maryland Psychology Department's Lavender Lab website as part of their creative project. Her poems have also been published in her school's literary publication. Contact: elinachangmd@gmail.com
Henry Crawford is author of three collections of poetry, American Software (CW Books, 2017), Binary Planet (The Word Works, 2020, 2nd ed. 2024) and Screens (Broadstone Books 2025). His poem, “The Fruits of Famine” won first prize in the 2019 World Food Poetry Competition. He writes a weekly Substack at Everyday Poet. (https://everydaypoet.substack.com/)
Suzanne Fine is a writer and piano teacher. She especially enjoys literary and historical fiction, and is passionate about nature, animals, and healthy living. She lives in Montgomery County with her dog Blossom. Website: www.blossomandsuzanne.com.
Zac Jones Gómez is a Wheaton-based writer by way of Kentucky who is continually inspired by the natural world around him. He has written throughout his life and is continually developing and reinventing what it means for him to be a writer. He has previously had work published in national and local outlets such as Condé Nast Traveler, Garden & Gun, and Vacationer Magazine. He recently began a Substack: The Tactical Urbanist.
Stewart Hickman is a Maryland-based poet and essayist whose work explores the ambiguity and perplexity of human consciousness. A former teacher, he spent four decades in organizational development and executive coaching in the fields of international development, healthcare, and education. A past Maryland State Arts Council panelist, he is the author of two chapbooks—Out and Back and why i never got to neptune—and writes a weekly substack: Meanwhile, Elsewhere by Stewart Hickman. https://hickman2.substack.com.
Ada Jo Mann After college, Ada Jo joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Chad which resulted in a career in international development, where she taught leadership development and trained more than 1000 NGOs and government workers in more than 50 countries mostly in Africa and Asia. When she retired, she discovered her poetic voice through courses she took at the bookstore Politics and Prose. As a result, she recently published a collection of poems called “Words Create Worlds”, which is available on Amazon. Contact: adajomann@gmail.com
Pam McFarland is a Silver Spring, Maryland-based writer, expressive writing group facilitator, and community college literature and writing instructor. Her poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals that include The Examined Life journal; The Saturday Evening Post; and Grace in Love, an anthology of DC-area women writers. Pam is also a journalist focused on climate change and environmental issues for a national engineering and construction news outlet. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pam-hunter-mcfarland-26b5a639/ IG: mcfarland_pam
Willa McMickle is class of 2029 at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, and she is thrilled to be making a public debut of her poetry, though she has been associated with theater productions and is currently in B-CC's production of Macbeth. She dreams of a collection of her poetry to be published by graduation. She works hand-in-hand with singer-songwriter Emma G to write her own original music and lyrics. Contact: etoliamc@gmail.com
Neha Misra नेहा मिश्रा is an award-winning poet, contemporary eco-folk artist and climate justice advocate. Her interdisciplinary practice builds creative bridges between private, collective, planetary healing and justice. Neha is 2023-2025 Hamiltonian Artists Fellow, 2024 TapRoot Artist in Residence with the North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, and 2022 Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis – an initiative of the OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Contact Information: https://tinyurl.com/ContactNeha
Website: nehamisrastudio.com
Yvette Neisser is an award-winning poet, Spanish translator, and founder of the DC-Area Literary Translators Network (DC-ALT). She is the author/translator of four poetry collections, most recently Iron into Flower (Finishing Line, 2022). She lives in a green cohousing community in Silver Spring, MD. Website: https://www.yvetteneisser.net/ Contact: Yvette.neisser@gmail.com
Sharon Neubauer is a poet, playwright, and Yoga instructor, and the owner of Opus Yoga in Gaithersburg, MD. Sharon's plays, Buddhaverse and Accountant of Love have been produced, and her poetry chapbook, A Work of Body: A Body of Work was published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press. In addition to writing and Yoga, she enjoys singing with Cathedral Choral Society, hiking and skiing. Contact: opusyogastudio.com
Mark Pierzchala was a statistician and systems analyst for 40 years, working nationally and internationally for the federal government, private industry, then his own business. He was on the Rockville City Council for 12 years. He’s done tons of writing, and now is extending into poetry for political, scientific, and religious topics and their intersections. Contact: Mark@MMPLive.com
Tara Prakash is the 2025 National Youth Poet Laureate Runner-Up and the Youth Poet Laureate of the United States South. She is the author of Memory Map (available for pre-order with Finishing Line Press) and is a three-time National YoungArts winner and two-time Scholastic Art & Writing National Gold and Silver Medalist (as well as an American Voices Medalist). She has performed at The Kennedy Center, the National Press Club, the Smithsonian Institution, and other venues, and is an incoming freshman at Princeton University. Contact info: taraprakash06@gmail.com. Author website: taraprakashwrites.com
Gabriella Stein is an up-and-coming writer and performer passionate about amplifying and empowering disabled communities through representation. She found her love of storytelling through her BA in theatre and ancient mediterranean studies and minor in creative writing. You can follow her creative journey @gabwritesrandomely on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Contact: gabriella.f.stein@gmail.com
Marianne Szlyk is a professor at Montgomery College whose poetry and fiction have appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Green Elephant, One Art, Mad Swirl, Impspired, Piker Press, and elsewhere. Her books --Why We Never Visited the Elms, On the Other Side of the Window, and I Dream of Empathy -- are available from Amazon and Bookshop. She and her husband, the wry writer Ethan Goffman, live without owning a car in Rockville, MD. You can read her poetry blog-zine and listen to his fiction podcast at https://thesongis.blogspot.com/ Contact: marianne.szlyk@montgomerycollege.edu or marianne.szlyk@gmail.com