wasted generation 19/03

Antonia Langford

for greta and the school strikers 

we are the wasted generation. 
young of a palimpsest spoiled like fruit by
sated ink and excess; hold us in the way our
mothers did. our confessionals, your android 
dreams of plenty - we have known your 
legacy, drawn it like cartography, traced
the veins of tributaries to our extinction,
held within our palms your heady fictions –
blind leading blind. 

we are the wasted generation. 
we are the shells of cars within your 
wrecking yards, the plastic carcasses that
follow in your wake, the give and take, 
the visitations of a coming
plague; we are the midnight dregs in pint glasses,
the dew on grass as daytime breaks, 
the final breaths and ever-ache.
we are second-hand smoke. 

destined to eulogise our land’s demise,
the soil that spoiled on the
lips of our parents
and clung to us like dust, as if
syntax could redeem us, as if 
semantics could stave off night sweats, the vision
of the world a lithop leaf and we its final incarnation, 
we are the wasted generation.

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On ‘wasted generation 19/03’

This poem is based on collective sentiments experienced by youth climate activists I encountered through the Fridays for Future demonstrations. It explores the recent intergenerational lens that has been applied to narratives about the environment and our duty/responsibility towards it. Originally a spoken word piece, it leans on the rhythmic and aural tropes of activist chants and anthems, seeking to connect to audiences on a visceral as well as linguistic level.

*This poem is an edited and extended edition of an original work written in collaboration with the Carbon Literacy Project, performed with Manchester Histories, Take Back, and Extinction Rebellion.