Being River: Ambient Poetics and Somatic Experiences of More-than-Human Flows

In this chapter, I explore the lives and wellbeing of rivers compromised by processes of contamination, industrialization, and urbanization inherent in the Anthropocene by asking: What aesthetic forms render porous the boundaries between subject and object to approximate ways of being river that bring human and nonhuman bodies of water closer together? How do aesthetic forms appeal to somatic experiences that reveal the ways that humans and rivers affect each other and foster a more-than- human understanding of ecological wellbeing? In what follows, I examine fluvial motifs in works by the Peruvian poet Javier Heraud, moving beyond their biographical and geopolitical valences to identify “ambient poetics” that evoke worlds where rivers are producers—not objects—of landscapes.8 Then I explore sound works by the contemporary Colombian artist Leonel Vásquez, considering how he mobilizes embodiment and enchantment to encourage ethical dispositions to contaminated river flows through somatic experiences of listening.