The Poetry of Climate Change in the Global South

Abstract

Translator’s note: Naiá is an indigenous woman who fell in love with the moon. The pirabutão is a common name for the flat-whiskered catfish, or Pinirampus pirinampu, found in the Amazon, Essequibo, Orinoco, and Paraná basins. Though translators usually convert gendered pronouns in Romance languages into gender-neutral pronouns, I decided to retain them to reflect that Kambeba is describing an indigenous cosmology in which elements such as water and the moon are personified. Márcia Kambeba, of the Omágua/ Kambeba indigenous people in Brazil, is the author of Ay kakyri Tama – Eu moro na cidade (2013). She’s a writer, composer, poet, activist, photographer, performer, and public speaker on indigenous and Amazonian subjects. With a master’s degree in geography, she offers workshops and storytelling throughout Brazil and abroad. Tiffany Higgins is a poet, translator, and writer on the environment and Brazil. Her writing appears in Granta, Guernica, Poetry, and elsewhere. Visit worldlit.org to read more by Kambeba and Higgins on poetics, politics, and indigenous rights and to listen to a recording of this poem in Portuguese/Tupi. The Poetry of Climate Change in the Global South by Tiffany Higgins I N BRAZIL, INDIGENOUS WRITERS tend not to foreground the concept of global climate, or even the environment, as a separate category. Instead, they write about nature and culture as woven together, describing their spiritual vision of earth and ancestry (antithetical to nonindigenous extractivism) as well as indigenous rights—the protection of which is essential to the protection of their forest homelands. Brazilian indigenous writings don’t fit neatly into US/European formulations of climate and environment . I believe for this reason that they’re essential for broadening conceptions of possible solutions, which would include acting as allies for peoples on the most vulnerable edges of extraction and integrating urgent issues of cultural survival into any climate discussion . In a utilitarian perspective, Brazilian forests produce “environmental services” for the globe in the form of carbon sequestration. Brazilian indigenous peoples are guardians of the forest as they protect their preserves at a rate exponentially higher than neighboring areas that are logged, mined, and burned for agribusiness—so they’re vital to climate regulation. If we value their climate contributions , we should support their political struggles for cultural and territorial continuance (for starters, such indigenous-led organizations as coiab, apib, and coica). In the poem featured here, Márcia Wayna Kambeba makes use of the fact that in Portuguese, tempo can mean both “time” and “weather” and that clima means both “weather” and “climate.” She uses these flexible meanings to convey how actions in her Amazonian home that affect local weather, obstructing ancient cultural practices, are connected to the wider climate. The poem also implies that the problem of climate will only be solved by a return to ancient knowledge, a way of relating to an earth animated by enchanted spirits, and a set of cultural practices that indigenous elders possess. Kambeba writes mostly in Portuguese, but she embeds Tupi words purposefully and consciously. She is aware that her nonindigenous readers would not understand many of these Tupi words, but her choice seems to be to challenge readers to come to face indigenous culture via indigenous languages. I asked Kambeba about why she uses Tupi rather than her own language. She explained that the Kambeba language is in the Tupi-Guarani linguistic family. Rather than use Kambeba terms, which only indigenous people of her small ethnic group would know, she chooses to use Tupi words so that tens of thousands of indigenous peoples will be able to understand her and feel united in a common identity through the poetic performances she gives. The United Nations has designated 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. KAMBEBA BIO PHOTO© AGÊNCIA PARA' TOP PHOTO: MÁRCIA KAMBEBA WORLDLIT.ORG 71 ...