European journal of American studies, Vol 9, No 3 | 2014

Combining insights from human geography, critical regionalism, and environmental literarycriticism, I argue that the concept of the translocal, rather than the transnational, is useful todescribe the complex poetics of place in Agha Shahid Ali’s A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991) and Arthur Sze’s The Ginkgo Light (2009). Engaging with landscapes of the American Southwest and elsewhere, and in particular with the natural environment, both poets reimagine the region as asite of translocal attachments and as the grounds for transethnic affiliations, especially with localNative American peoples. What emerges from this inclusive and yet open sense of belonging toplace is an ethics of being in and with nature that attempts to reckon with the increasingpressures of both globalization and global environmental crisis. Literature, as Ali’s and Sze’s poetry suggest by foregrounding poetic strategies like intertextuality and metaphoricalOn Common Ground: Translocal Attachments and Transethnic Affiliations in Agha... European journal of American studies, Vol 9, No 3 | 201418