“Ecopoetics” is an ecocritical neologism referring to the incorporation of an ecological or environmental perspective into the study of poetics, and into the reading and writing of (mainly) literary works. “Poetics” and “poetry” derive from the classical Greek word “_poiesis_,” meaning “making,” and as Bate observes in his landmark theorization of _ecopoiesis_, this is an activity that might in principle be practiced in any medium (Bate 2000, 45). Making is by no means an exclusively human practice. Many other species make things, some of which display not only high levels of craftsmanship but also an aesthetic sensibility, as Darwin observed of the highly decorated structures created by the Australian male bowerbird, the sole purpose of which is evidently to charm the female. The natural systems that have enabled the emergence of these diverse creative practices might also be seen as _poietic_ or, rather, _autopoietic_, continuously generating new forms and patterns, and dissolving old ones, in a dynamic process of open-ended becoming. Human “poesy” is thus both continuous with that of other species and sustained by what the early German Romantics referred to as the “unconscious poesy” of the Earth (Rigby 2004a, 102–3). One of the core concerns of ecopoetics is...