Thank you for your carefully written responses to the reviewers comments and issues. I invite you to make the changes you described and to upload your updated article for confirmation by the reviewers and editor.
All the best,
Mathew Stiller-Reeve

Thank you for taking the time to update your paper in response to the reviewers comments. Your paper describes a really nice method and dataset, which have not been used extensively before. Prof Zerefos accepts the paper as is. However, Prof. Pyle and referee #3 are not reassured yet.

Their main points can be summarised as follows:
1. There are not enough sample poems in the analysis
2. The implications from the analysis are too large

In my new reading I agree with Prof. Pyle’s analysis. The paper needs to be reframed in accordance with his comments. One cannot extrapolate from 34 poems over 200 years to the perceptions of all humanity. Just because the poets are “part” of humanity does not mean that they “represent” humanity. You write in the article that the poets are “representatives of the society and cultures they live in”. You also write that there is a tendency “towards poems that make reference to biblical figures from Christianity”. It seems that you fully understand the skew in the poetry you analyse. All that remains is that you frame the analysis and discussion accordingly. You need to remove any statements that indicate that these poems represent humanity as a whole, and tone down the implications of the study. 


My other worry also stems from Prof. Pyle’s comments, that there is an absence of “any discussion of the way the cultural, social, political.. backdrop to the poems has also changed through time is a severe limitation”. This issue has also been referred to by referee #3.

I have knowledge about how Hawaiian culture considers the volcanoes and thereby their goddess Pele. I know that Hawaiian culture considers all of nature, including the volcanoes, in a familial respect and act thereby in a reciprocal manner. This is reflected in traditional arts and dances of the Hawaiian culture. On top of this, we find the insidious filter of colonialism.
In Hawaii, colonialism has severely impacted how the local society interacts with and talks about the volcanoes. This is especially true during the exact timeframe you are looking at. In other words, there are many voices at play in Hawaii alone. There are several cultures and power dynamics influencing what a single poet would write about when it comes to the volcanoes and the goddess Pele. Only an analysis of many poems, from many different authors, would be able to illustrate how humanity in Hawaii perceives volcanoes.

You don’t need to go into a deep analysis of these issues as they will be numerous the world over. However, you need to be aware of them and mention them. You also need to change your language so that you are aligned with these issues. Again, it’s impossible to extrapolate from one poem mentioning Pele to how all “humanity” in Hawaii perceives the volcanoes.

In addition (and with the Hawaiian example in mind), I believe it is a stretch to make the conclusion that “the relationship between humanity and volcanoes is unidirectional and focused on identity”, “with humans ultimately of neither benefit nor concern to the volcanoes that they write about”. In traditional Hawaiian culture, Pele (the volcano), gives so much to the people, and she is recognised in traditional song and dance. The following text is taken from a book about the (hula) dances of Pele’s story (Kanahele, 2001: p6).

“we do the dance of Pele, and the dances of the eruptive phases of this island and how things are born out of this land. And it can be the birth of a tree, the birth of a flower, the birth of an ali’i or a king or a chief. All of this comes out of this land, and this land is the responsibility of Pele.”

So Pele gives the people trees, flowers and even their own kings. This does not strike me as unidirectional. The poems may indicate a unidirectional relationship, but hopefully this exemplifies that that does not reflect the perception of all of humanity in Hawaii. I am not expecting you to go into a deep analysis of the cultural power dynamics here. However, you have to be aware that volcanoes have huge cultural significance in some indigenous cultures. And as soon as this occurs, then it is almost impossible to avoid a discussion on (or at leat mention of) colonialism.

In short, you need to emphasise that the poems are a product of the society and culture the poets are a part of. You therefore need to reframe your research question and implications accordingly.

One final point from myself is that you state that “the results might better inform our communication with communities living nearby active volcanoes”. Without concrete ideas about how this might happen, then I would ask you to remove this from the text. With only 34 poems in your sample, extrapolating the results to general communication strategies could actually be damaging, as the situation in Hawaii hopefully illustrates. But on the (very!) positive side, your methodology could be an integral part in a deeper analysis with a local or regional community to develop communication strategies.

I strongly recommend that you consider all the points by the referees and myself. This will require considerable revisions to the text. I am looking forward to seeing the updated version.

Kind regards,
Mathew Stiller-Reeve

References:
Kanahele, P. K. (2001). Holo Mai Pele. Pacific Islanders in Communications.

I am in general happy with the responses and alterations the authors have made in this round.
I believe that much of mine and the reviewers comments stem from the previous overreaching research question. The authors have indeed altered the research question itself, but not followed through with the rest of the article, as I clearly articulated previously.
The word “humanity” and it’s relationship to the poems is still mentioned 11 times throughout the text. This must be amended before I can accept for publication.

Mathew Stiller-Reeve

Thank you for making these corrections. You have responded to the points made by the reviewers. The simple alteration of the research question and some of the formulations has really helped the article not overstretch itself. Congratulations on a nice piece of research and thank you for interacting respectfully with the review process.