Scrivere attraverso la natura: Schiefern di Esther Kinsky e il nuovo paradigma della soggettività poetica

This article aims to explore the concept of “Nature Writing” and its relevance in Esther Kinsky’s poetic work, with a specific focus on her collection Schiefern (2020), set on the Slate Islands of Scotland, an island group formerly inhabited by slate quarry workers. Kinsky’s book allows to reflect upon the codeterminations between natural and human history. The article emphasizes the deep connection between language and geology in Kinsky’s poems, leading her to develop a true geological poetics. The author regards stones, particularly slate, as tangible manifestations of how human memory operates. Much like metamorphic rocks, memory exhibits sedimentary character istics and undergoes continuous transformations and reworking of past events. Kinsky’s book thus represents an effort to “read” the territory (Gelände) as both a physical repository of natural and human (his)stories, and a semiotic space. While the author draws inspiration from the tradition – e.g., the concept of liber naturae, or the Romantic idea of nature as a system of hieroglyphs – the most intriguing aspect of her poetry lies in the reconfiguration of poetic subjectivity. With the dissolution of the lyrical self, Kinsky allows the physical landscape to speak for itself, highlighting the porous relationship between human and natural entities and conveying the idea of Naturschreiben as a mode of writing through nature.