Poetry in the Anthropocene 2.0 [Lyrik im Anthropozän 2.0]

Abstract

This paper examines Marion Poschmann’s 2020 poetry collection Nimbus through the lens of climate engineering in the Anthropocene 2.0, exploring how contemporary poetry engages with environmental crisis and technological intervention. Analyzing Poschmann’s work within the context of German eco-poetry’s evolution, the study reveals how her poems challenge traditional boundaries between nature and technology, human and non-human. The findings demonstrate how Poschmann’s poetry represents a nuanced exploration of human technological engagement with environmental systems, presenting climate engineering not as an unprecedented solution but as a continuous process of planetary transformation throughout the past, the present and the future. Through techniques of temporal fluidity, merging with natural matter and shifting subjectivity, the poems expose the complex, paradoxical relationship between human technological ambition and environmental change. The analysis ultimately suggests a more interconnected understanding of human intervention in natural systems beyond simplistic narratives of damage and repair.