Forever: Poets on PFAS, Plastic, and Persistent Pollution

A call for poetry submissions

In our everyday lives, we encounter many different kinds of toxic chemicals, from the mercury found in tuna to radon gas seeping into basements through cracks in foundations to benzene exposure from vehicle exhaust, cigarette smoke, and gasoline fumes. Lead from old paint can accumulate in dust and soil, as well as enter our drinking water from old plumbing lines. Pesticide residues can enter our bodies through the foods we eat. Pollution from microplastics and other industrial contaminants can be found everywhere from the abyssal depths of the ocean to the most remote regions on Earth. Many of these substances persist long after the products and processes that produced them. 

The manufacture of radioactive materials for nuclear weapons and power plants has produced waste that remains dangerous for thousands of years (Brown, 2013). Nuclear accidents at Chornobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima require ongoing care and monitoring (Brown, 2019). The lands of Indigenous peoples throughout North America have been contested sites of nuclear waste storage and important places of Indigenous resistance and environmental activism (Endres, 2023). In 2025, a Russian drone damaged the confinement structure at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, demonstrating how persistent pollution can produce risks that outlast political and technological circumstances that created it. Microsoft has recently contracted with Crane Clean Energy Center to restart Three Mile Island in order to produce energy to support its artificial intelligence infrastructure, demonstrating how old infrastructures can generate new risks. 

Our bodies bear traces of these exposures, which come to us every day through the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the products we consume. Once they enter our bodies, many of these chemicals bioaccumulate, meaning we carry them with us for months, years, and even decades. From cancer clusters to intergenerational exposure (Griffin, 1992), this persistent pollution contributes to the “slow violence” of environmental degradation, disproportionately affecting marginalized peoples (Nixon, 2011). We find that poetry offers a powerful way to make tangible these often imperceptible risks, which unfold across vast reaches of space and time.

In collaboration with  the STEEP Superfund Research Program and the DWELL Lab, the editors call for poetic responses to the pressing concerns of persistent pollution. Known as “Forever Chemicals,” PFAS—short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—are a large family of synthetic chemicals that have been used in a vast array of industrial and consumer products since the 1940s. Their unique properties make them useful in products that are resistant to oil, water, and heat. They can be found in everything from rain jackets to fire extinguishers to the lining of pizza boxes. These distinctive properties also mean that PFAS do not readily break down in the environment or in the metabolic processes of plants and animals.

Because some PFAS can mimic hormones in our bodies, they can disrupt endocrine and immune system responses. Their long-term effects are complex and diffuse, far-reaching and localized, vast and invisibly small. PFAS exposure has also been associated with health problems like high cholesterol, liver damage, and increased cancer risks, among many other concerns. These chemicals are also harmful to animals—impacting everything from hatch rates in turtles (Beale et al., 2022) to immune responses in alligators (Guillette, et al., 2022) and even plants (Li, et al., 2022)—disrupting photosynthesis, damaging cell structures, and slowing growth. In doing so, PFAS and other persistent pollutants help us to understand what Stacey Alaimo terms “trans-corporeality,” describing the ways that the transport of toxic substances can collapse the boundaries between human bodies and the material world, leading us to “not only [trace] how various substances travel across and within the human body but how they do things—often unwelcome or unexpected things” (Alaimo, 2010, p. 146).

We are seeking poetry that responds to the topic of persistent pollution as part of what some scholars refer to as the “Anthropocene,” or perhaps even the “Plasticene” (Haram et al., 2020) describing a period of time in which human activity (such as industrialization, capitalism, and colonialism) has disrupted ecological processes at the global scale (Haraway, 2015). We are interested in a wide range of forms and styles that engage with toxic pollution everywhere from the microbial to the global. We invite poems that consider the ways that humanity has inscribed itself into the geological record through radioactive elements like Plutonium 239 (used in nuclear weapons) to the formation of novel rock formations like Plastiglomerate (a plastic-rock hybrid). 

From Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, to contemporary risk communication (Amidon, et al., 2026), science communication has always been a creative practice (Jones, et al., 2026). As such, we are interested in the intersections of science, art, and practice, as seen in Max Liboiron’s work with the CLEAR Lab (Liboiron, 2021), a plastics research group tracing pollution through a wide array of “environmental matrices” (Liboiron, 2026). Near to this are Adam Dickinson’s The Polymers (2013) and Anatomic (2018) and the Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology’s “Parapoetics Series.” Dickinson has also written some important commentary on the relationship between writing and petrochemicals in his commentary for Jacket2, particularly “Prickly new cells” and “Metabolic Pathways.” Collections using poetic form to interrogate the intersections of art and science include A. R. Ammons’ Garbage (1993), Evelyn Reilly’s Styrofoam (2009), and Tim Cresswell’s Plastiglomerate (2020). Rebecca Dunham’s Cold Pastoral (2017), Craig Santos Perez’s Habitat Threshold (2020), and Margaret Atwood’s “Plasticene Suite” in Dearly (2020) are additional examples of poetics responding to pollution and ecological disaster. Upstream of this work, Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead (1938) and Mark Nowak’s Coal Mountain Elementary (2009) examine disaster and extraction through documentary and resource poetics.

Because PFAS remain in both body and environment for long periods of time, we are interested in poems that contrast the half-lives of chemicals with the lives of people, plants, and animals. We are interested in how chemicals collapse distinctions between environment and inhabitant. As they spread through global atmospheric processes, PFAS demonstrate human impact on places so remote that they have been considered pristine by environmental scientists (Kourtchev, et al., 2024). As such, these chemicals also disrupt Romantic notions of Nature as untouched by humans, whether it be in the middle of the Amazon rainforest or the bodies of penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula (Badia, et al., 2026).

While microplastics have received wide coverage, the emerging research around the dangers of PFAS has only begun to garner widespread media attention, despite the fact that companies have known about the dangers associated with these chemicals since at least the 1950s (Hayes and Faber, 2019). Today, PFAS have been detected in rainwater around the world, with concentrations of some compounds exceeding drinking-water guidelines in many locations (Cousins et al., 2022). Perhaps most shockingly, breastmilk and colostrum have been shown to be an important PFAS exposure pathway for infants (Mogensen et al., 2015; Blomberg et al., 2023). From our first moments on earth, in the most sacred union between mother and child, we can encounter harmful chemicals that may persist in our bodies for years. It is our hope that Forever can voice a response to the problems of persistent pollution that we face, reckoning with the realities of living in an age of global anthropogenic change.  

Timeline

CFP Posted: October 15, 2026

Submission Deadline: January 31, 2027(11:59pm EST)

Response Timeline: Contributors will be notified of editorial decisions via Submittable by March 15th, 2027.

We are in conversation with potential presses and anticipate submitting the completed anthology manuscript in April 2027. A publication date will be determined in consultation with the eventual publisher.

Guidelines

Submit 3-5 poems in a single document (.doc or .docx format), with each poem beginning on a new page. One submission per poet. We accept electronic submissions via Submittable only (email submissions are not accepted). We prefer poems shorter than 2 pages but will consider poems of any length. Include a brief third-person bio and a cover letter in the Submittable submission form. There is no fee to submit.

All submissions must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, provided that you withdraw poems immediately if they are accepted elsewhere. To withdraw individual poems, please send a note via Submittable. Contributors will retain copyright to their work. 

We do not accept poems that are attributed to or aided by artificial intelligence (AI). 

About the Editors

Madison Jones is an associate professor of science communication in the departments of Public/Professional Writing and Natural Resources Science at the University of Rhode Island. He is founding director of DWELL Lab, a research initiative that combines creative approaches with emerging technologies for community-based science communication. His lab collaborates with the STEEP (Sources, Transport, Exposure & Effects of PFAS) Superfund Research Program to produce digital science communication projects. He is the author of Inventing Ecosystems: The Rhetoric of Science in an Ecological Age (Palgrave, 2025) and the poetry collections Losing the Dog (Salmon, forthcoming) and Reflections on the Dark Water (Solomon & George, 2016). His poems have appeared in journals such as The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He is co-editor of A Rhetorical Arboretum (Ohio State UP, 2027), Rhetorical Ecologies (NCTE, 2024), and Writing the Environment in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Bloomsbury, 2015). For more information, visit https://madisonpjones.com/

Beth McDermott is the author of Figure 1 (Pine Row Press), a 2022 finalist for the Foreword Indies and a 2023 finalist for the da Vinci Eye/Eric Hoffer Award; and a chapbook titled How to Leave a Farmhouse (Porkbelly Press). Her poetry appears in journals such as Pine Row, Tupelo Quarterly, Terrain.org, and Memorious. Reviews appear in American Book Review, After the Art, Kenyon Review Online, and RHINO Reviews. She’s the recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL., an Illinois Speaks Micro-Grant, and first place in the Regional Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest. She has been an editor at Kudzu House Quarterly, RHINO, and Cider Press Review. For more information, visit https://bethmcdermott.com/

About DWELL Lab: DWELL (Digital Writing, Environments, Location, and Localization) Lab is a digital humanities initiative that brings together creative approaches and emerging technologies for community-based science communication projects through co-creation and collaboration. DWELL has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and has been recognized with the 2025 Environmental Communications Award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. DWELL draws upon place-based writing and location-based media to build engaging and participatory science communications that are steeped in local environments and communities. 

About STEEP: STEEP (Sources, Transport, Exposure, and Effects of PFAS) Superfund Research Program, a multi-institutional collaboration between University of Rhode Island, Silent Spring Institute, Harvard University, and Brown University, was founded in 2017 with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. STEEP approaches the threat of PFAS through rigorous interdisciplinary science and engagement, investigating exposure pathways, identifying and quantifying environmental and human health risks, developing novel detection techniques, and supporting knowledge exchange and mitigation measures in impacted communities.

Works Cited

Alaimo, S. (2010). Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Indiana University Press.

Amidon, T.R., Pflugfelder, E.H., Richards, D.P., Sackey, D.J. Undermining Risk and Technical Communication: Extractive Industry, Cascading Disaster, and the Global Climate Crisis. State University of New York Press, 2026.

Badia, M., González, D., Sepúlveda, M.S., Foster, G.D., Van Aken, B. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in archived Antarctic penguin feathers. Environ. Toxicol. Chem., 45 (2026), 2158–2168. doi: 10.1093/etojnl/vgag095 

Beale, D.J., Nilsson, S., Bose, U., Bourne, N., Stockwell, S., Broadbent, J.A., Gonzalez-Astudillo, V., Braun, C., Baddiley, B., Limpus, D., Walsh, T., Vardy, S. Bioaccumulation and impact of maternal PFAS offloading on egg biochemistry from wild-caught freshwater turtles (Emydura macquarii macquarii). Sci. Total Environ., 817 (2022), Article 153019, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153019

Blomberg, A.J., Norén, E., Haug, L.S., Lindh, C., Sabaredzovic, A., Pineda, D., Jakobsson, K., Nielsen, C. Estimated transfer of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from maternal serum to breast milk in women highly exposed from contaminated drinking water: A study in the Ronneby Mother–Child Cohort. Environ. Health Perspect., 131 (2023), Article 017005. doi: 10.1289/EHP11292

Brown, K. Manual for Survival An Environmental History of the Chernobyl Disaster. W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

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Cousins, I.T., Johansson, J.H., Salter, M.E., Sha, B., Scheringer, M. Outside the safe operating space of a new planetary boundary for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Environ. Sci. Technol., 56 (2022), 11172–11179. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c02765

Griffin, S. A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War. Doubleday, 1992. 

Guillette TC, Jackson TW, Guillette M, McCord J and Belcher SM (2022) Blood concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are associated with autoimmune-like effects in American alligators from Wilmington, North Carolina. Front.Toxicol. 4:1010185. doi: 10.3389/ftox.2022.1010185

Haram, L.E., Carlton, J.T., Ruiz, G.M., Maximenko, N.A. A Plasticene Lexicon. Mar. Pollut. Bull., 150 (2020), Article 110714. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110714 

Haraway, D. Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities, 6 (2015), 159–165.

Hayes, J., Faber, S. For decades, polluters knew PFAS chemicals were dangerous but hid risks from public. Environmental Working Group (2019). EWG report

Jones, M. P., Banville, M. C., & Heilig, L. (2026). Visualizing Environments: Toward A Natural History of Science Communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816261471749

Kourtchev, I., Sebben, B.G., Brill, S., Barbosa, C.G.G., Weber, B., Ferreira, R.R., D’Oliveira, F.A.F., Dias-Junior, C.Q., Popoola, O.A.M., Williams, J., Pöhlker, C., Godoi, R.H.M. Occurrence of a “forever chemical” in the atmosphere above pristine Amazon Forest. Sci. Total Environ., 944 (2024), Article 173918. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173918

Li J, Sun J, Li P. Exposure routes, bioaccumulation and toxic effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) on plants: A critical review. Environ Int. 2022 Jan;158:106891. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106891. Epub 2021 Sep 27. PMID: 34592655.

Mogensen UB, Grandjean P, Nielsen F, Weihe P, Budtz-Jørgensen E. Breastfeeding as an Exposure Pathway for Perfluorinated Alkylates. Environ Sci Technol. 2015 Sep 1;49(17):10466-73. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.5b02237.

Nixon, R. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard UP, 2011.