/ 29 May 2023

Versopolis Podcast #4: Poetry and Ecology

Jan Škrob


The climate crisis can be a source of both indifference and anxiety. What is poetry’s role in navigating through it? Can environmental poetry evolve into a political movement that invigorates climate activism? What can we learn from non-Western cultures, and what is deep ecology? How can we restructure our societies beyond the myths of the individual and the collective to create a ‘new tribalism’, akin to what was once found on pirate ships? These questions are explored by poet and writer Jan Škrob in conversation with Dr Mitja Drab.

Jan Škrob was born in Prague in 1988. He is the author of three books of poetry, Pod dlažbou (Under the Paving Stones, 2016), Reál (Real Life, 2018) and Země slunce (Land of the Sun, 2021). His poems have been translated into multiple languages. His debut book was nominated for the 2017 Magnesia Litera Czech literary award in the ‘Discovery of the Year’ category. For his second book, Škrob was nominated for the Jiří Orten Award, given for the best book of the year by an author thirty years of age or younger. He is also the co-winner of the Dresden Poetry Award for the year 2018. His poems have been translated to several languages and have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, both home and abroad.

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