The conditions

[EMBARGOED UNTIL 6/1/2023] The critical introduction to this dissertation examines Jericho Brown's 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning collection The Tradition as a work of eco-justice poetry. In this essay, I argue that the tenets of eco-justice poetics are an essential part of ecopoetry. Close reading Brown's text, I explore the ways that eco-justice poetry addresses the intersection of environmental exploitation in a time of unprecedented climate crisis and the epidemic of police violence against Black lives in the United States. The creative component of this dissertation is a book-length work of poetry that brings together my own experience as a Georgian with research about various histories in the state and the U.S. South. The poems in this collection explore how local cultural narratives form and how power structures shape those narratives. The book balances research on Georgia history with my own experiences in Georgia to produce research-driven, lyrical poems about historical and contemporary events. Individual poems discuss the Jim Crow era white supremacist terrorism that removed people of color from Forsyth County, the reformation of the Ku Klux Klan atop Stone Mountain, James Baldwin's investigation of the infamous "Atlanta child murders," the history of segregation in Atlanta, and the exploitation of the Okefenokee Swamp for agricultural and logging purposes in the 19th and 20th centuries. Others navigate ongoing contemporary issues like the opioid epidemic, the political landscape of the U.S. South, and the impact of climate change on lives in the 21st century.Includes bibliographical references