Longtime environmental advocate Russ McSpadden’s first book is a collection of poetry drawing on his experiences in the borderlands. Contributed photo

Southern Arizona environmental organizer Russ McSpadden will discuss “Borderlings,” his new book of poetry, at the Patagonia Public Library on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14 at 2pm. 

McSpadden traces his environmentalism back to the coalfields of West Virginia, where his great-grandfather died of black lung disease. It’s no surprise that environmental justice has been a theme running through his activist career. 

Since 2012 he has worked for the Center for Biological Diversity as Southwest Conservation Advocate, involved in research and campaigns relating to biodiversity, iconic species (jaguar being his favorite) protection, watershed and wildlife corridor preservation, bi-national cultural significance of the borderlands, gentrification, light pollution, wildlife and community impacts of mining and border wall construction, container wall resistance, and environmental education. 

With “Borderlings”, his first collection of poems, McSpadden joins a long history in American letters of passionate activist-writers attempting to make sense of the pervasive and powerful wildness of the West as it meets capitalist development’s appetites for land, water and minerals. 

As a writer, McSpadden has always been drawn to poetry as a way of finding deep emotional answers. He’s in the camp of Albert Einstein, who famously said, “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” 

The path through the poems in “Borderlings” is not easy. There will be surprises, just as there are everywhere in the Sonoran desert. Discoveries, tenderness, juxtapositions, creatures, moments, even words, that you weren’t expecting. Ever hear of “war kiss,” “God-coffin” or “gastroinfinity”? 

As for the flow of words in these poems, don’t expect either rhymes or complete sentences. There is occasional regular punctuation, but a shortness of commas and especially periods and capital letters. In reading you’ll be washed over by associations and innuendos.

What you might expect in a book focusing on borderlands experiences is some Spanish. McSpadden has worked on ambos lados, both sides, so yes, there’s a little Spanish, such as the slang for Border Patrol, la migra, which means migration. But his broad knowledge and an undergraduate degree in literature mean he’s able to use bits from Tibetan, Nahuatl, French, Latin and German when they suit the moment. 

The poems in “Borderlings” are not conventional love poems. So what are they? The love you can find sprinkled in these pages is for the magic of life at every scale, from bacteria to planet, overlaid with the knowledge that you do not destroy things you love. “Borderlings” is available for order online at artspeakpress.com/shop/p/borderlings