Poet Tanya Holtland laments the toll of environmental apathy

Shin Yu Pai

April 23, 2023 

Each day during the month of April, KUOW is highlighting the work of Seattle-based poets for National Poetry Month. In this series curated by Seattle Civic Poet and Ten Thousand Things host Shin Yu Pai, you'll find a selection of poems for the mind, heart, senses, and soul.

In her Ballard-based poem "Golden Gardens," Tanya Holtland contemplates environmental pollution and its impacts on non-human species and future generations.

Tanya Holtland is a poet and writer. She is author of the chapbook Inner River (Drop Leaf Press, 2016). Her eco-poetry collection Requisite (Platypus Press, 2020) was a finalist for the Broken River Prize and nominated for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her work surrounds the intersections of memory, ecology, healing, design, and matriarchy.

Golden Gardens

feathered
underwing of the newborn

seagull has only just begun
to rot, by its first meal

filter,
dead cigarette at the tongue

mother feeds
her and I,

also deadened, dis—
believe

the symphony
preceding change

is surely all these symptoms
not us not

seeing the seals, turtles
not the coyote, wren, or deer

not the fox, salmon, frog
not the orcas, not the worms

not the whales, not the bees
not the waters, not these

losses
of meaning

or dawn can seem to rise
to meet the insatiable

distance between
the earth and us—

capable, loving, longing
conflicted in all our glory—

we, the only ones
who can tell and be told a lie

Story from Poetry in Bloom

Shin Yu Pai
HOST, TEN THOUSAND THINGS

Shin Yu Pai is the current Civic Poet for The City of Seattle (2023-24) and host of KUOW's podcast Ten Thousand Things (formerly The Blue Suit). She is an award-winning writer and visual artist based in Seattle.