In both “A Poetics of Planetary Water” and ”Deterritorializing Preface”, Steve Mentz mentions that water is not just a background detail. Instead, it is something active that shapes human life and the way we think.

About “planetary water”, he says we should include not only the ocean but also rivers, lakes, glaciers, and even vapor in the air. He explains, “Human bodies and cultures form themselves in encounters with water in all three physical phases, liquid, solid, and gas.” This made me realize how often I do not realize or think about water in my daily life. I drink water and walk in the rain, but I don’t usually think about how those small moments connect to bigger systems like glaciers or oceans. Dickinson’s poem about the sea as “Everywhere of Silver” shows how water can be beautiful and scary at the same time, and Whitman’s poem about swimming in the surf reminded me of my own summers at the beach. Reading Mentz made me see those memories as part of something larger, not just small personal experiences.

In the “Deterritorializing Preface”, Mentz suggests “seven new words” to help us think differently. The one I found most interesting was “distortion” instead of “clarity.” Since water bends light, what we see through it is never fully clear. When I read this, I connected it to my own experience in school. I often feel pressure to give clear and correct answers, as if learning always has to be perfect. But the truth is, learning is rarely that simple. Sometimes it is confusing, and sometimes I don’t fully understand things right away. Mentz’s idea of distortion reminded me that confusion is not always failure, it can be part of the process. Like water, knowledge changes depending on where you stand and how you look at it. I thought that if we accept distortion, we can see value in shifting perspectives. It means knowledge is not fixed, but flexible and moving like water. This makes me think differently about learning, and it also makes me less afraid of uncertainty.

Changing one word, clarity to distortion, might not sound like much, but it really does change my thinking about knowledge. It suggests that instead of chasing perfect answers, we should pay more attention to movement, change, and growth. And that feels much more realistic, and also more human.