The Work of Grief, the Voice of Hope. Trajectories of ecological advocacy in contemporary British and Irish creative non-fiction and poetry

By focusing on literary texts that attend to processes of human (re)attunement to the natural world, this study aims at highlighting how personal reflection and the embracing of an affective engagement with the environment can pave the way for an inclusive and resilient ecological responsiveness, which could ultimately contribute to effective, large-scale environmental action. Works of creative non-fiction and poetry by Sara Berkeley, Kerri Ní Dochartaigh, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Olivia Laing, Moya Cannon, Kathleen Jamie and Leanne O’Sullivan are brought into dialogue with one another to highlight the pervasiveness and the cogency of questions and concerns around affective responses to climate-change-related loss. Special attention is given to the interplay between grief and hope and its role in the recalibration of human experience within the wider network of planetary life and for the development of a literary ecological advocacy rooted in “response-ability” (Haraway 2016) and care.