In Conversation With Ann Fisher-Wirth 

You write in your essay that you've been feeling "like a deer in the headlights of a Mack truck—so overwhelmed by environmental and political awfulness" that you don't know which way to turn. Are you feeling more hopeful these days about political and environmental concerns?

I do feel more hopeful about political and environmental concerns than I did before President Biden took office. At least we have a president who acknowledges that there is an environmental crisis. But we still have a long, long way to go, and not much time. We in the first world cannot cling to our present modes of living and expect techno-fixes to our problems. We must find ways to live sustainably, to honor earth, its creatures, and our fellow humans. This will require some radical changes in our ways of being.

How have the events of the past year—the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and fallout from the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol—affected your writing?

I have not written very much about the current political situation, though I did write a sequence of poems in response to COVID-19, of which several have been published. But my sister died in October 2019 after a quick, brutal illness, and most of the poems I have written during the past two years have been about her. Then too, this past year I have been busy teaching poetry workshops and seminars, and serving as principal investigator for the National Endowment for the Humanities planning grant our environmental studies program received, to develop a sequence of courses for “Environmental Literacy and Engagement in Mississippi.” Not to mention—at the beginning of 2021 I had a total hip replacement and have been recovering since then. It has not been the best time to write. I also feel a little tongue-tied: how could I respond adequately to the suffering and turmoil all around us?

In your essay, you note that the call for essays about deep beauty was "a call to eschew the feeling of defeat." How have you been able to stave off feelings of defeat in the past year?

The past year has been tough. A year ago I was still intensely grieving for my sister. And all year I’ve been worrying about my children, several of whom have work that exposes them potentially to COVID. I have had moments of feeling defeat. But several things have helped. First, my incredible family and especially my husband, who has been wise and steadfast and loving throughout all the hard times. Second, the Zoom reading I’ve done all year with four of our grandchildren. I read to them for an hour three times a week, and our list of books is getting pretty long. I love that contact—love seeing their faces, visiting with their mothers, following their lives. Third, teaching. I love my students, and I love the classes I get to teach, though I’m tired of Zoom. Fourth, yoga. My own practice of yoga is physically compromised by, first, my rheumatoid arthritis and, second, my hip replacement recovery. But I’ve been giving free Zoom sessions every week to a group of friends, as a combination of gentle yoga and yoga nidra. And finally, flowers and trees and weather and sky. Today the daffodils, redbuds, and forsythia are in bloom, and the grasses are full of spring ephemera. So much beauty surrounds me.