Ecocritical Analysis of Spurned Goddess by Ted Walter

Spurned Goddess is a simply-written yet evocative eco-poem

that pours out the anxieties and concerns of the eco-conscious
few in an age when consumption and destruction seems to be the
norm. In the very first stanza, the poet adopts an evocative tone,
as if he is desperate for others to see his point and make a
change. He exhorts the man to consider Earth. His statement to
explore the ache that arises from losing touch with where we
have been is a common motif in modern eco-poetry: the
unsettling sense that human beings have severed themselves
from their roots. In tune with the title of the poem, which
designates Earth as the Spurned Goddess, the poet dutifully and
reverently capitalizes the first letter of Earths name, as if he is
humbled before her greatness.
Spurned Goddess is a poem that repeatedly make use of the
antiquity of Earth as a reason to respect her and not destroy her.
The implied meaning is simple enough to understand: the sheer
length of time that went into the making of the Earth indicates
how sublime and how humanly-inimitable task the creation
process is. As if to mock the apotheosis ambitions of humanity,
the poet juxtaposes this fifteen billion concept right next to the
attempts of human beings to be mock-Gods. We have started
taking from the Earth. We overfish, we trample with the gene. In
the next line, when he again asks us to consider Earth and
explore the ache, it is not just a lament on the destruction of the
Earth, but also a lament on the irony that man fails to realize his
own insignificance and triviality in the face of the nature and tries
to be God. This ignorance itself, is an ache.
The next stanza goes on to explore the theme of destruction.
The allusions to residual pesticides, lifeless lake and ash-turned
forest, the poet replaces with death and destruction what once
had been the images of life (lake and forest). As if to amplify the
contrast, he asks whether anyone remembers green any more.
Again he brings in the concept of the long time, emphasizing the
rashness of destruction.

In the next stanza, the poet juxtaposes the limitedness of

human capability to the infiniteness of the potential of nature.
These species have been forged first in the cosmic fire, and it is
not possible for humans to fake this. Once dead, no being will rise
again. Implicit in these lines is a poignant smile that recognizes
mans insignificance and laments the way in which the rest of the
world seems not to realize it.
The next stanza does a volte-face and addresses Earth as
the spurned Goddess. If the mood that dominated the poem until
now is a condemnation of todays mankind that refuses to see its
own actions, in this stanza, the poem looks into future. He asks
whether our children will learn to speak her name in hope, and to
return her honour. In other words, he is hoping and wondering
that what this generation failed to give back to earth the future
generation will.
As typical of Ted Walters poetry, he ends the poem with a
series of questions. It took fifteen billion years to make a peopled
planet. Was the creation itself a mistake?Will it be able for human
beings to find that the slate can be wiped clean? It seems as if the
poet is hoping that the mankind would begin anew by wiping their
past errors clean. He ends his words by askingus to consider Earth
and explore the ache, after all it is something that took fifteen
billion years to make.
Looking at the poem as a whole, we can see that throughout,
the poem takes the side of the nature. It is a thoroughly ecocentric poem and thoroughly dismisses the modern lifestyle that
places man at the centre. By imagining nature as a Spurned
Goddess, the poet asserts a recurring theme in eco-poetry and
eco-literature how the earth, once central to a humans life, has
lost its significance. However, the poet also takes a hopeful new
step, when he envisions that the coming generations will make
amends for the past errors. The poem betrays one of the common
concerns among the eco-conscious writers: the realization that
though they themselves wish to make amends, a solitary voice is
not going to accomplish much amidst the chaos of consumerism
and destruction. Partly, this might be what makes the author look
up to future generations in hope, and reject the contemporary

humanity as ambitious, destructive and uncaring. Thus, the poem

reveals its true eco-conscious nature through revealing concerns,
anxieties and fears while yet hoping for a change.