Metamodern Spirituality in Antjie Krog’s “oh Fragile Earth … a Mass for the New Dispensation” (from Pillage , 2022)

Antjie Krog's poem sequence 'oh fragile earth … a mass for the new dispensation,' from her volume Pillage, adapts the Christian Roman Catholic mass to create a space for ecological mourning, celebration, and metamodern spiritual reimagining. The poems lament human destruction of the planet and warn of impending devastation, while articulating a fragile hope grounded in interconnection with all life. The analysis identifies four characteristics of metamodern spirituality in the work: simultaneous belief and scepticism; reappropriation of religious language for a fluid, posthuman, post-secular experience; critical engagement with ecological devastation alongside wonder and hope; and balancing activist urgency with poetic humility. The author argues that Krog's mass proposes a metamodern soteriology where the earth is both a site of salvation and destruction.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The final section of Antjie Krog’s volume of poetry, Pillage (2022), consists of a sequence of poems titled “oh fragile earth … a mass for the new dispensation.” Krog’s mass adopts and transforms the content and structure of the Christian (Roman Catholic) mass, concerning both liturgy and music, and becomes a space for ethical and ecological mourning, celebration, and metamodern spiritual reimagining. The poems lament human destruction of the planet and of one another and warn of potential impending destruction, while also articulating a fragile hope for renewal grounded in recognition of interconnection with everything on earth. In examining these poems, I focus on four characteristics of metamodern spirituality: simultaneous accommodation of belief and scepticism; reappropriation of religious language to construct a fluid, posthuman, and post-secular spiritual experience; critical engagement with ecological devastation alongside an openness to wonder, awe and hope; and balancing of an activist urgency with poetic and interpretative humility. I argue that Krog’s mass offers a vision of metamodern soteriology, wherein the earth itself is posited as a site of both salvation and destruction. Pillage contributes to contemporary ecopoetic discourse while exemplifying a contemporary spirituality, inflected by metamodern sensibilities and rooted in African soil.