Earth Shattering: ecopoems

by Neil Astley (editor)

Earth Shattering lines up a chorus of over two hundred poems addressing environmental destruction. Whether the subject - or target - is the whole earth (global warming, climate change, extinction of species, planetary catastrophe)or landscapes, homelands and cities (polluting rivers and seas, fouling the air, felling trees and forests), there are poems here to alert and alarm anyone willing to read or listen. Other poems celebrate the rapidly vanishing natural world, or lament what has already been lost, or even find a glimmer of hope through efforts to conserve, recycle and rethink. Earth Shattering's words of warning include contributions from many great writers of the past as well as leading contemporary poets from around the world, ranging from Wordsworth, Clare, Hopkins, Hardy, Rilke and Charlotte Mew to Wendell Berry, Helen Dunmore, Joy Harjo, Denise Levertov, W.S. Merwin and Gary Snyder. This is the first anthology to show the full range of ecopoetry, from the wilderness poetry of ancient China to 21st-century native American poetry, with postcolonial and feminist perspectives represented by writers such as Derek Walcott, Ernesto Cardinal,Oodgeroo and Susan Griffin. Ecopoetry goes beyond traditional nature poetry to take on distinctly contemporary issues, recognising the interdependence of all life on earth, the wildness and otherness of nature, and the irresponsibility of our attempts to tame and plunder nature. The poems dramatise the dangers and poverty of a modern world perilously cut off from nature and ruled by technology, self-interest and economic power. As the world's politicians and corporations orchestrate our headlong rush towards Eco-Armageddon, poetry may seem like a hopeless gesture. But its power is in the detail, in the force of each individual poem, in every poem's effect on every reader. And anyone whose resolve is stirred will strengthen the collective call for change.

Genres: Poetry, Nature

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2007

About the author

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, Britain’s leading poetry imprint, which he founded in 1978. His own books include novels, poetry collections and anthologies, most notably the Bloodaxe Staying Alive trilogy. He is also a trustee of Ledbury Poetry Festival and Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, and a development committee member of Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway, Ireland.

Reviews

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as great in my estimation as the "Staying Alive", "Being Alive" anthologies, but still good.

[Juliet Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earth Shattering is an anthology of poetry about the relationship between humans and the natural world. It encompasses a wide range of poems along the continuum of pure nature poetry and out and out environmental campaigning poetry, though it does avoid the most didactic poetry. Neil Astley the editor uses the phrase eco-poetry to describe this continuum of poetry, others have called it ‘green poetry’ or ‘the new nature poetry’.

The book includes work from a wide variety of poets, including many of the most well known eco-poets from across the world.

Earth Shattering is arranged in sections that look at different elements of the human relationship with nature:

1. Rooted in Nature features poetry largely from ancient Chinese poets but also from Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and more contemporary poets such as Robinson Jeffers.
2. Changing the Landscape focuses on 18th and 19th Century poets who wrote about the destruction of the environment, showing that environmental awareness does in fact go back further than we sometimes think.
3. Killing the Wildlife focuses on the death of individual animals but mostly on extinctions.
4. Unbalance of Nature includes poetry about pollution, deforestation, urbanisation.
5. Loss and Persistance celebrates nature and our attempts to protect it even as it is vanishing and laments what is gone.
6. The Great Web focuses on our interdependence with nature and includes poems that are love poems to nature.
7. Exploitation looks at our exploitative relationship with nature, including a section on Dispossessing America.
8. Force of Nature focuses on climate change and global warming and the broader state of the planet.
9. Natural Disasters looks at hurricanes and other natural disasters that are becoming more common as the climate changes.

To quote from the book's introduction:
‘As the world’s politicians and corporations orchestrate our headlong rush towards Eco-Armageddon, poetry may seem like a hopeless gesture. But Earth Shattering shows that the power of poetry is in the detail, in the force of each individual poem, in every poem’s effect on every reader. And anyone whose resolve is stirred will strengthen the collective call for change’

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be impossible for me to do justice to this anthology. I'll start by admitting I wasn't too familiar with the term 'ecopoetry'. This is simply one of the best anthologies of poetry I've ever read if not THE best. Neil Astley starts chronologically and includes poets from ancient China, goes on to Thoreau and Wordsworth, the Americans Robinson Jeffers and Robert Frost then more contemporary poets. New names for me included, Gary Snyder, W.S. Merwin, Chase Twitchel, Robert Hayden, Helen Dunmore, Wendell Berry, Peter Reading ( how to channel anger and despair about the shame of being human into lyrical words!) and David Craig. I'm actually being unfair by singling out individual poets. I haven't counted but I think its somewhere like 500 poets here. The poems are divided into sections with these headings: Rooted in Nature, Changing the Landscape, Killing the Wildlife, Unbalance of Nature, Loss & Persistence, The Great Web, Exploitation, Force of Nature, Natural Disasters. Excellent Introduction and great biographies of all poets. This is a must buy anthology.

[Zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this anthology. It has such a great variety of poets writing about place. I used it when I was teaching a module on 'Writing about Place' at University of Northampton. I would select a bunch of poems, and the students would choose the ones that they liked the best to discuss in class. This worked so well, and both the students and I really enjoyed using the anthology. I also would add that the write-ups of writers and their philosophies of place are really useful.

[Caleb Tankersley · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review of this book in volume 8.1 of the literary magazine Big Muddy!