“Whitman’s pale body, and my own, frolicking in the waves, carry on our skin the guilt and violence of ecological catastrophe. I would like to believe, and sometimes I do believe, that inside the chaos of the surf we can derive succor and some pleasure from the buoyancy that poetry creates. But it is hard not to recall the other creatures who depend upon the ocean, the fish and crabs and microscopic plankton, that will pay a harsher price.(150)”

Every summer, the warnings issued through news sources and splashed in front of empty lifeguard shacks tell beachgoers that a sewage spill has contaminated the water, and thus, swimming is not recommended. And so, like Dickinson, we watch from ashore, the untouchable Silver that beckons us with its waves and dirtied water. At least, this is the issue in the South Bay. Miraculously, the sewage-contaminated waters from the Tijuana River plant do not spread beyond Silver Strand(and occasionally Coronado).

Every year, visitors turn away from the contaminated beaches of the South Bay, and find solace in the pristine white sanded beaches of Solana and La Jolla, conveniently located in some of the most affluent areas of San Diego. 

While Blue Humanities focuses on the poetics of planetary water, I can not in my experience separate my view of the ocean from the politics of land and water. The contamination of the beaches and the surrounding wetlands and waters is a constant feature on my mind. Just as Steve Mentz states, “it is hard not to recall the other creatures who depend upon the ocean, the fish and crabs and microscopic plankton, that will pay a harsher price(150),” I too can not seperate my enjoyment of the beach and ocean, from the total devestation of an unsolved ecological crisis happening a few miles down the coastline. As we turn to our beaches in the summer for pleasure and connection, and the surrounding coastal cities benefit from curating their beaches into tourist economies, I think of the way we continually take advantage of the body of the Ocean, the life and solace it provides us, and with which we interact.

I appreciated the broad experience captured in “poetics”, which Mentz expands through “Aristotle’s claim that poetics combines pleasure and pain,” which “seems especially noteworthy for a blue humanities focus on the watery parts of the world that both allure and threaten human bodies. (139)” Even as we remain grounded in our homes and on land, the ocean reminds us of its mistreatment, and it asks us to pay the price. As the issue at the sewage plant worsens with inattention, it rightfully reminds us that even the gorgeous beaches and tanned cliffsides further up the coast can not escape the eventual devastation of human pollution.