A Cloak for Courage in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This essay is a reflection on the process of creating a Cloak for Courage in the Anthropocene, from early ideas to the finished garment. We describe our collaborative practice and methodology as the composite eco-poet, kin’d & kin’d, challenged by the work of Donna Haraway to reassess our relationship with the many-more-than-human. We show how US poet Jorie Graham influenced our movement from a focus on hope to a commitment to courage at this time of eco-crisis, and how our concern with reciprocity, beauty and uncertainty as working principles led to the particular form that the Cloak took. Drawing on the lyric essay that we originally wrote about the process, ‘The evolution of a thought about courage in the Anthropocene’, we also illuminate the set of writing practices that would ‘consecrate’ 47 wild objects to make them into amulets for courage for the Cloak’s pockets. We discuss how being-with, thinking-with and listening to, the wild objects became crucial methods of inquiry and developing respect. We conclude that the whole experience of conceiving of and making the Cloak was an experiment with uncertainty, and that ultimately, we can only point towards what we might call courage in this era.