Here at The New Sincerest, I’m very excited to announce a new regular series. You’re now listening to Ecopunk, a music and talk show program aiming to highlight the intersection between the arts and environmental perspectives. Ecopunk will air on Thursdays from 12pm-1pm on KHOI Story City/Ames, except for the last Thursday of each month, and will be archived here on this Substack.
I’m your host, Connor Ferguson. I am a creative writer based out of Ames. My work largely considers the intersection of urban environments, natural environments, and human environments in relation to queerness, cultural criticism, and mysticism.
For this week’s episode I’m excited to be joined in the studio by Claire Jussel, a peer of mine in the MFA in Creative Writing and Environment Program at Iowa State University. Claire Jussel is a poet and artist from Boise, Idaho. She has a BA in History and English from St. Olaf College, and is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University. Her previous places of work and fascination have included bookselling at Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis, park-rangering in Wyoming, and occasional lighthouse keeping. Her work explores notions of kinship, history, and spirituality in connection to place and other-than-human beings. Her poems have appeared in the Women Food and Agriculture Network’s zine “Stories of the Seasons”, SEISMA magazine, Pinhole Poetry, Wizards in Space, Split Rock Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and West Trade Review.
In this episode, Claire Jussel reads “Narthex” and “Spring is Hard Work”, two poems from her poetry collection (tentatively titled Journey Through the Field), explains what a fen is and their importance to the ecosystem, her time spent living in Idaho and Minnesota and Iowa and how it has impacted her work as a poet, and much more!
Song Selections:
“The Fading” - Joan Shelley
“Cold Rain and Snow” - Bonny Light Horseman, Anais Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, Josh Kaufman
“Why Walk When You Can Fly” - Mary Chapin Carpenter
“Parking Lot” - Weather Station
“Song for the Seeds” - Humbird
“Visions” - José González
“Passengers” - Aoife O’Donovav, Madison Cunningham
“Her Silver Spate” - Salt House
“Have You Ever” - Brandi Carlile
About Ecopunk
The title of the program comes from its definition as a literary genre: Ecopunk is a subgenre combining science fiction with themes of sustainability, conservation, and reparation; it explores how humans can symbiotically and respectfully interact with the environment and adapt to climate change. Ecopunk is also a design aesthetic that embraces a positive outlook on the future. While the definition does relate it to fiction as a genre, I think it’s a philosophical concept that can be applied to any creative work, since it champions the imagination of a better world in our current climate crisis.
Each week on Ecopunk, I will invite a locally based creative to come onto the show to discuss their craft, how philosophical perspectives on the environmental imagination informs their work, and how the arts can connect and collect our community. After our conversation, the guest will curate a selection of music that is conversation with their craft.
Ecopunk is produced in collaboration with KHOI’s partnership with the BeWild/ReWild program, a loosely-knit group of volunteers with a passion for wildness, reconnecting with the natural world, and curiosity about what lifestyle changes are necessary for us to live within the bounds of sustainability. Here at Ecopunk, we invite you to imagine a better, more sustainable world through the arts.
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