Can Poetry Save the Earth?: A Field Guide to Nature Poems

AMERICA’S ANGST AND ROBERT LOWELL’S 265

Across the river,

ledges of suburban factories tan

in the sulphur-yellow sun

of the unforgivable landscape.

A solitary man (if only he couldbe a bird-watcher!) and “A Negro,” the poet ’s
proxies, cannot discover America like Columbus and Walt Whitman. Wastage,
pollution, leave “wild ice” the only genuine sight. We ’re left in an “unforgiv-
able,” unforgiving landscape.