Water Poetics in the Works of Kim Hyesoon, Derek Walcott, and Khal Torabully: A Comparative Ecocritical Reading

This study offers a comparative ecocritical reading of selected works of poetry from South Korea (Kim Hyesoon), the Caribbean (Derek Walcott), and Mauritius (Khal Torabully). By examining the role of water as a space of hybridisation for life and death, as well as a space that enables multispecies embodiments and entanglements, the analysis will aim to highlight the significance of the material environment for the representation of postcolonial identities and experiences in literature across different cultural and historical contexts. It will trace how each of the poets resists anthropocentric logic and discourses of oppression through a form of anti-authoritarian ‘water’ poetics. In order to do so, it will integrate perspectives from literary studies with environmental histories and anthropology. The discussion will be developed as a contribution to the blue humanities, offering a nuanced reading of two key concepts in the field, namely thinking with water and the idea of a terraqueous globe. The selection of works from three different linguistic and geographical areas reflects a need to incorporate non-anglophone literatures into the existing discourses of ecocriticism, while the comparative approach aims to emphasise the shared significance of the ecological dimension which underlies their distinct poetics.