Poetic Imagination as Climate Practice

Sor Juana was a profound poet whose work moved hearts and minds, demonstrating that intellectual rigor and artistic beauty are not opposed but intertwined. This concept recognizes that climate justice requires not only scientific data and policy but also imagination, narrative, and beauty. Dominant industrial narratives have shaped consciousness to accept extraction and growth as natural; counter-narratives through art, music, literature, and performance can reshape what people desire and believe possible. Poetry, storytelling, theater, and visual arts make climate change emotionally resonant and personally meaningful in ways statistics cannot. They offer visions of different worlds—not dystopian warnings alone but beautiful possibilities of regeneration, justice, and human flourishing. They honor grief while cultivating hope. They connect climate change to questions of meaning, beauty, and what makes life worth living. Following Sor Juana's integrated vision, climate justice requires both rigorous intellectual work and artistic expression. Artists, poets, and cultural workers are not supplements to climate action but essential practitioners, expanding imagination about alternatives, touching hearts toward transformation, and creating the cultural conditions where new economics and politics become conceivable and desirable.