The Study Of Ecological Turn In Alice Walker’s Poetry

Alice walker is one of the most famous black female writers who are still active in American literary field. Walker has published novels, poetry and prose works since1968. In1982, Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with her novel The Color Purple, becoming the first black female writer to receive the honor. Compared to the achievements of novel field, the attention of her poems is much smaller. However, Walker’s literary career began with poetic creation, and poetry is the extemalization of walker’s spirit and truly reflects her inner changes, so her collection of poems are important materials to go further on analyzing her thought. There is an obvious ecological turn in walker’s poetry through her creation of more than half a century. This thesis will discuss this change mainly from three parts.The first part mainly introduces Walker’s creation of poetry, expounds its important role in reflecting Walker’s thoughts and subjective tendency and reviews of the research situation at home and abroad. Though poetry is not the most compelling part of Walker’s literary creation, it has been the most close relations with the outside world.The second part discusses the process and performance of the ecological turn in Walker’s poetry. The ecological turn is not achieved overnight, for it is a gradual process from the expression of personal feelings to concerning about realistic ecological problems. At the beginning, there are simple natural aesthetic preferences revealed in her expressions of personal emotions. Secondly, Walker started to concern more about natural and ecological problems in participating in social movements, and the poetry is no longer a simple way to express emotions and seek power from the nature. On the basis of the above, Walker keeps the faith to pursuit the interests of ecological holism and advocate building a better world by the form of love.The third part focuses on the cause of ecological turn of Walker’s poetry. There are many reasons for the ecological turn in the poetry which reflect Walker" s spirit world. The environment of her growth cultivated Walker’s love for people and nature; the reality urged her to re-discover and re-think the world. They are all important steps in the sprout and turn of ecological spirit. Some ideas of New Age Movement have important influences on Walker as well. Under the comprehensive influence of these factors, some crucial changes have taken place in Walker’s thought, and, in the poetry creation, it is revealed to be an obvious ecological turn.Poetry, as a unique aesthetic form, has an important position in the field of literature, and ecological poetry has its own artistic characteristics. The ecological thoughts Walker actively advocated will guide people protect the ecology and earth more actively.