Ofelia Zepeda; bilingual poetry; ecocriticism; ecolinguistics

Miroslav Černý’s “Desert Law: Language and Environmental (In)justice in the Poetry of Ofelia Zepeda” focuses on the analysis of bilingual poetry by an Indigenous writer, linguist, and activist of the Tohono O’odhamNation, whose traditional tribal territories span across the Sonoran Desert, onboth sides of the U.S.–Mexico border. In its exploration and analysis of theindividual poems through the perspective of environmental justice ecocriticism,the chapter further draws on the fields of language ecology, ecolinguistics,and environmental linguistics to unveil the role of ancestral languages and ancestral language behavior in two collections of Zepeda’s verses, namely Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995) and Where Clouds Are Formed (2008). Ultimately, Černý argues that language is a key category of environmental justice and that ecolinguistic sources and tools extend environmental justice ecocritical analysis in new directions. Through a close reading of the poetry of the Tohono O’odham writer, he illustrates that the crucial role of language is especially relevant in the context of Indigenous life, literature, and relationship to land.

Miroslav Černý’s “Desert Law: Language and Environmental (In)justice in the Poetry of Ofelia Zepeda” focuses on the analysis of bilingual poetry by an Indigenous writer, linguist, and activist of the Tohono O’odhamNation, whose traditional tribal territories span across the Sonoran Desert, onboth sides of the U.S.–Mexico border. In its exploration and analysis of theindividual poems through the perspective of environmental justice ecocriticism,the chapter further draws on the fields of language ecology, ecolinguistics,and environmental linguistics to unveil the role of ancestral languages and ancestral language behavior in two collections of Zepeda’s verses, namely Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995) and Where Clouds Are Formed (2008). Ultimately, Černý argues that language is a key category of environmental justice and that ecolinguistic sources and tools extend environmental justice ecocritical analysis in new directions. Through a close reading of the poetry of the Tohono O’odham writer, he illustrates that the crucial role of language is especially relevant in the context of Indigenous life, literature, and relationship to land.