Nothing could delight me more than to extend an invitation to a conversation I’ll be having with Dougald Hine, author of the much acclaimed and intellectually pivotal book, At Work In the Ruins, and host of the Substack newsletter, Writing Home. Dougald is also cofounder, along with Paul Kingsnorth, of The Dark Mountain Project.
I first met Dougald in 2010 when Dark Mountain was preparing to launch its first volume. They had already written a manifesto which had spread through the internet, and I managed to stumble upon it. I remember sitting up in my chair as I began to take in the unflinching clarity of it’s assessment. “We are the first generations born into an unprecedented age—the age of ecocide”… a global society “up to its neck in denial of what it has built, what it has become—and what it is in for.” They warned of “financial wizards losing their power of levitation,” and called on us to turn our gaze away from the ever-promised heights and have the courage to “look down” and see just how far we’ve left the ground. When they issued their first call for submissions I sent in a few poems, one of which they liked enough to put in the front of their first volume, an honor I’ll never quite get over.
That was fourteen years ago, and I doubt either Dougald and Paul could have anticipated how far (and deeply) their message would spread. One of their key assertions concerned the need for new stories, that the stories we were telling ourselves about the world, of a human future marked by endless technological progress free of ecological limits, was leading us into social and ecological catastrophe. Mere amendments would not do. We had to weave new stories if we were to find our way through. It was only a number of years before I began noticing echoes of that call appearing in various public statements. I knew it had fully arrived when about ten years later I received an boiler plate email from Al Gore telling me it was time to tell new stories. Apparently, good thinking sticks around and travels.
There was something else, a certain style of thinking at work, what one might characterize as thinking with questions. The approach of Hine and Kingsnorth wasn’t to declare a new idea or program and then defend it, but to set off wandering with nothing but a humble commitment to inquiry, a willingness to not know, to create a mental space that takes us out of the mode of reflexive problem-solving and into something wilder, older, less comfortably determined. That too I’ve begun to hear echoing around me, and am encouraged by it.
Along the way, both Hine and Kingsnorth arrived at their own conclusions about when it was time to move on to their own pursuits and let others take over with fresh energy and new questions. Accomplished writers such as Charlotte Du Cann and Nick Hunt, along with a widening network of volunteers, stepped in to continue the work. So far the project has produced 24 hardbound volumes, each a treasure of stunning artwork and some of the best, most surprising writing around.
I sometimes wonder if I would have come to this newsletter without being part of the Dark Mountain community. Yes, having my poem, and then two essays, published in Dark Mountain gave me confidence to continue my work, but there was more to it than that alone. In a certain sense, Dark Mountain gave me permission to think my own thoughts and ask my own questions, and reading the work of others doing the same thing provided a webbing that made me feel part of something larger and more durable than my own ambitions. The old structure of letting an “expert” class do our thinking for us is losing its luster. And the notion that the important questions were answered long ago by the Greeks and their lineage has also begun to crumble. The old questions—who are we? where are we? what are we doing? where are we going?—are still with us, and retain their beauty and vivacity. They don’t grow old, but change with time, and are ours to ask.
It remains to be seen what sort of questions Dougald will have for me. I hope I am up to them, but am assured that I will be held in the presence of one of the finest thinkers of our time, as well as a human being with unassailable common-sense and good will.
I hope you’ll join us.
To join the conversation live on Sunday, you will need a paid subscription to either this newsletter, or Dougald’s newsletter, Writing Home. Later, Dougald and I will offer the first 40 minutes of the session for free on our respective sites, but the 20 minutes Q&A that follows will require a paid subscription.
The call lasts an hour and starts at 8pm CEST which is 7pm BST, 2pm EDT or 11am PDT. Use the Zoom link below to join the call:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81522886284?pwd=N3V0R29oZUdTYkdxVWtwS3JVMXZRdz09
Meeting ID: 815 2288 6284
Passcode: 568926
If this doesn’t work, go to Dougald’s Substack Page, Writing Home.
Here is the poem that got this connection started.
I WENT LOOKING FOR THE WILD ONE I went looking for the wild one, the howler, the vatic tramp, the one for whom the wounded hillsides are inner burns, whose blood is stained with the old love-wine of poet and Earth— warrior poet, slinging battle flak out at the static, shattering polite conversations everywhere. I looked in the anthologies, listening for echoes, traced for signs in the quarterlies, magazines, best-ofs. I learned it's been a good year for poetry, grants and awards coming in, contests and prizes proliferating. The wise grey consensus counsels a return to the classics. Meanwhile, poor scientist holds extinction in a palmful of numbers with nothing but data to howl with.
Not sure I'll make the 1am wake up time (damn you daylight savings!) but if not I'll be eager to listen to the replay. You and Dougald have given me so much to think about these last few years, have given me a grounding on which to stand and defend. Thank you to both of you.
Looking forward to two warrior poets shattering polite conversations this Sunday. Thank you.