Hooked on Plastic
Poetry
MacArthur Genius
Ocean-ographer,
Edie Widder:
“I don’t eat wild fish
anymore. They’re full of
plastic.” Recently in Norway,
a whale washed up with 30
plastic bags and other plastic
solids in its stomach. It starved
—there’s no room for food in a
stomach full of plastic. There is
no nutrition in 30 empty plastic
bags; 30 plastic bags can’t pass
through the intestines of Earth’s
largest animals. Experts expect
there will be more plastic than
fish in the sea by 2050. As
the seas rise and ocean
currents slow, we shall
drown in plastic, wash
up bloated, full of
our selves.
Pegi Deitz Shea is an award-winning children's book author, and has published more than 500 works of poetry and nonfiction for adult readers. She runs the reading series Poetry Rocks, in Vernon, CT, and is president of the Connecticut Council of Poets Laureate. Learn more at www.pegideitzshea.com.