Ethnopoetics contains an aesthetic power that Lindz Marsh sought to harness to discover both the sensuality and spirituality of India; these haiku were created to allow her to absorb and express her experiences during a field study with the Centre for Environment Education, a NGO in Gujarat, India. For her, poetry is, at once, reflexive and creative, and provided a window to interrogate India’s cultural, social, political and economic contexts and their shifting relations. These haiku were written with the intent to share in local Indians’ concern of the corporate takeover of their land, water, and seeds and to share in the hope for change through advocacy and activism.

Origins

Freedom in our palm
The leaf does not recognize
The trunk of its tree

Voice

sing loud, activists
for the wind cannot rustle
unless there are trees

Originally published in Tuck Magazine