"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

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cilia, spirochaetes, mitochondria, geoid) and the underlying scientific theories of, for
example, Darwinism, the biological function of cells, and geophysiology (the scientific
name for Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis (see footnote on p 36). His scientific understanding
of the way nature works is perhaps most explicitly demonstrated in his use of
evolutionary theory (see p 82). This is evident in his first volume, A Skull in the Mud, and
in the poem of the same name, but is most explicitly explored in A Littoral Zone. In this
work Livingstone puts humanity in the no-man’s-land of the littoral zone and shows that
humankind has lost a sense of belonging or place on the Earth. Evolution and ecology are
inextricably linked (see p 131 for a fuller explanation). Douglas Livingstone as poet is
both quixotic champion of the abused Earth and prophet of ecological doom. His poetry
implies that he saw himself as a misguided ecological knight errant. But, as a
microbiologist, he spent 30 years fighting water pollution off the Durban coastline. A
Littoral Zone is the poetic account of his scientific work and is a bioregional narrative
(see p 8).
Douglas Livingstone’s poetry is difficult. Initially I thought it was too difficult,
that its lyricism could be intuited but never adequately explained. I still believe this is
true. But I no longer believe that it is inaccessible. Perhaps it is the difficulty of
Livingstone’s poetry which has resulted in both a narrow political interpretation of his
work and a paucity of critical material on A Littoral Zone. In 2002, nearly a decade after
this collection was published, Duncan Brown was the first to offer an environmental
interpretation of A Littoral Zone. Apart from this, there has been no explicitly
ecologically oriented interpretation of Livingstone’s work. His most prolific critic,
Michael Chapman, concedes (in the introduction to The New Century of South African
Poetry) that Livingstone may be read ecologically. He does not say it as plainly as this
and, curiously, puts his references to ecology in scare quotes:
The focus on Livingstone’s last collection, A Littoral Zone (1991), lends emphasis
to his concern with the ‘ecologies’ of our existence. Given the freer climate of the
1990s it may be possible to move beyond arguments as to whether Livingstone’s
derisive comments about polit-lit in the politically tense 1970s inevitably branded
him a politically incorrect human being. While not ignoring the political past it is
arguably more agreeable today to view a ‘green’ Livingstone. (2002: xxiii)
Livingstone’s refusal to be drawn into the political arena and Chapman’s insistence that
he should be is documented both in Chapman’s critical work and in interviews he
conducted with Livingstone. This thesis attempts to show that Livingstone was never a