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Paper short abstract

What remains when landscapes burn? This paper examines online poetry as a form of collective memory after the 2025 wildfires in Greece, showing how Facebook became a "digital memorial square" where grief and solidarity transformed catastrophe into cultural continuity.

Paper long abstract

Natural disasters do not only destroy material landscapes. They also reconfigure the symbolic terrain of memory, grief and expression. Poetry, as one of the most enduring forms of cultural articulation, often emerges in the aftermath of catastrophe as a vehicle for collective remembrance and a means of giving voice to the unspeakable. This paper explores the role of poetry in shaping and sustaining collective memory after disaster, focusing on its intersections with folklore, ritual lament and digital culture.

The case study centers on the wildfires of 2025 in Greece, which sparked an outpouring of poetic responses on social media, particularly on Facebook. In these digital spaces, users shared verses, ranging from personal laments and improvised rhymes to adaptations of traditional mourning tropes that circulated rapidly within communities and across networks. These texts functioned as both individual acts of mourning and collective gestures of solidarity.

By analyzing selected posts, this paper demonstrates how Facebook acted as a contemporary mnemonic site, a "digital memorial square" where grief, protest and remembrance converged. Poetry, in this context, does not remain confined to aesthetic appreciation but becomes a vital cultural practice that bridges personal trauma and collective memory.

Methodologically, the paper proposes reading digital texts on Facebook after disasters not only as literary texts but also as ethnographic evidence, traces of how communities narrate, negotiate and endure loss. In doing so, it positions poetry as a dynamic folkloric response that transforms catastrophe into memory and memory into cultural continuity.