Review: Vanishing Points: Words for Disappearing

Changing the Tides on the Climate Crisis
Review: Vanishing Points: Words for Disappearing

Sammi Grasso

Amy Kennedy
Micro Essays
Antenna Press, pp. 204
Cost: $16.00

Amy Kennedy’s Vanishing Points is like the dictionary every person needs on their bookshelf. For such a small print, every page packs a punch while equipping its readers with the knowledge and terminology to discuss and evaluate the climate crisis in a whole new light. A collection of micro essays, Kennedy's Vanishing Points takes the shape of an ecological dictionary that ranges from actual terms such as biosphere, confirmation bias, and greenhouse effect to concepts like boomtown and climate doom. It’s a six by six powerhouse collection that gives concept after concept without much room to breathe. Kennedy’s motivation seems to be: We can only fight against something once we learn the language to destroy it.

For being Kennedy’s first collection, she employs a strong voice through some of the microessays. In her essay “David vs Goliath archetype,” she says, “I hope more than anything that this is a David and Goliath story, that there can and will be a world that isn’t structured around corporate extractivism” (63). Here, there’s a stronger connection that is formed between the author and reader in that she directly calls out to us. It seems like she entrusts us as her audience to accept and even combine our aspirations with hers so that we become one recipient to all of the statistics and examples laid out. It shows us her own hopes, fears, and desires in regards to the future of the world in reference to the climate issue. 

She keeps her hope woven into her language across multiple of her microessays including in her essay “imagination (and fear)”. She describes the correlation between fear and how it activates the imagination in both positive and negative ways. However, she pursues the issue and offers the reader a more encouraging moment: “In order to turn back the doomsday clock– and I absolutely refuse to believe that we can’t– we have to imagine that it’s possible to do so. And we can’t do that if our imagination is paralyzed by fear” (103). After the onslaught of information both from the ground level and the theoretical ties that Kennedy sets up, these brief moments of reassurance and a belief in a brighter and stronger future are a welcome breath of fresh air. 

Anyone who struggles with footnotes or ‘see also’ sections may have a hard time working through the formatting of Kennedy’s prose. Seeing as a majority of her concepts connect and overlap and speak to one another, there are many moments where she will interrupt her prose and add a “see also” that connects to one or multiple other essays within the book. While the purpose is clear, the frequent influx of information may overwhelm readers, who might not yet fully understand the material or may feel pulled into jumping between texts before finishing the original essay. In tandem with this, Kennedy mentions that it’s important to read this book in sections rather than all at once, for even she recognizes how draining the content can be, so be sure to keep that in mind as you approach the text.

Anyone who enjoys reading and discussing the climate crisis issue on not just an ecological level, but political, racial, and class levels will love Amy Kennedy’s read. The micro essays are just that and fit so much information in a little 6x6 book. The decision to include images from different areas that are being affected are a good visual addition to her evidence backlog, and truthfully, more could have been included to show how widespread the issue remains. I find myself walking away from Kennedy’s collection with new ideas and a deeper appreciation for the scientists and environmentalists on the front lines trying to fix our planet before it’s far too late.