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HERE: Poems for the Planet
HERE: Poems for the Planet is a lovesong to a planet in crisis. Summoning a chorus of over 125 diverse poetic voices, this anthology approaches the impending environmental crisis with a sense of urgency and hopefulness. Now more than ever is the time for this book as it seeks to galvanize readers, students, teachers, philanthropists and everyday people to address the realities of climate change head on and become individual catalysts for change. Here looks at the world with a renewed sense of courage, fighting fear that so often leads to indifference and cynicism. The anthology also includes an activist guide, created in tandem with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and an introduction by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. With these poems, we hope you will see with new eyes what the astronauts saw the first time they peered down from space at our tiny world.
240 pages, Paperback
Published April 23, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 26, 2019
This book is a rare and beautiful gift, generously conceived for the Planet. With works by 125 poets, among them Mary Oliver, the book offers a rich and diverse array of poems, each weaved into a common and singular thread: mainly, our natural world and the need to preserve it.
Bees, fish, trees, oceans and the heavens, all feature like actors in a stage in this necessary and timely collection, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama.
The book also includes a guide to activism by the union of concerned scientists.
Bees, fish, trees, oceans and the heavens, all feature like actors in a stage in this necessary and timely collection, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama.
The book also includes a guide to activism by the union of concerned scientists.
December 23, 2019
You should probably ignore my rating - poetry just doesn’t work for me. I tried. I read every one. Sigh...
May 8, 2019
This is a beautiful collection of poems, gathered around the theme of the earth. The book includes an incredible array of poets and poems -- from classics like Wendell Berry's The Peace of Wild Things and well-known poets like Tracy K. Smith, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, and Mark Doty, to brand new poems and poets of all ages and backgrounds. A foreword from the Dalai Lama and an afterword of practical ideas for positive action from the Union of Concerned Scientists bookend this marvelous collection, giving us small and big ways we can make a difference. The book is an ingenious example of interweaving inspiration through poetry with opportunities for love in action. I know so many people who will enjoy this book and have given it as a gift to three others already.
June 20, 2020
I have been making a conscious effort to read more poetry this year. I also have existential terror and dread over climate change and our collective efforts to ignore and not educate ourselves over what climate change will cause.
Here is a poetry collection dedicated to climate change, our planet, and what losses we face and the wonder, majesty, and beauty of the planet.
A few of the highlights in this collection:
Esma’il Kho’I’s “Image of Kindness” shows how the earth, especially a tree, is here for all of us, regardless of political persuasions and ethnicities.
Learn from this tree:
It offers its bountiful canopy of shade
Over your head
Rain or shine;
Rain or shine
No matter whence
You came to it;
And it never,
Not even out of innocent curiosity,
Sizes you up:
“Hey stranger! Where are you from?”
Bob Hickox’s “Hold your breath: a song of climate change” encapsulates my despair and barely contained frustration and rage at our inaction, what I predict will happen:
“Where we’re drowning / we’ll do something. / When we’re on our roofs. / When we’re deciding between saving / the cute baby or the smart baby.”
Mary Oliver’s “The Fish” illustrates our interconnectedness with all species.
The fourth chapter highlights poems of children, written when the contributors were between the ages of six and eighteen. As has always been the case, we should listen to them more often than we do. Children have a lot more wisdom than we want to think they do:
Katie Friedman “Haiku”
Hit rewind and
the flowers will bloom bright again,
rain will revisit the sky.
Lauryn Brown “Voice”
I hear it,
the whispers of the trees,
melody of the wind,
the woven tale of the soil,
echoing into the past,
into the future.
Nature has a voice
if only you’d listen.
But for all the beauty and alarm of this collection, the poem that fills me with the most hope and amazement is Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things.” Berry, in a few short lines, can move from internal despair to awe, the feeling when we walk out into a still, quiet evening, when the rest of the world is asleep, except nature.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and life down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Here is a poetry collection dedicated to climate change, our planet, and what losses we face and the wonder, majesty, and beauty of the planet.
A few of the highlights in this collection:
Esma’il Kho’I’s “Image of Kindness” shows how the earth, especially a tree, is here for all of us, regardless of political persuasions and ethnicities.
Learn from this tree:
It offers its bountiful canopy of shade
Over your head
Rain or shine;
Rain or shine
No matter whence
You came to it;
And it never,
Not even out of innocent curiosity,
Sizes you up:
“Hey stranger! Where are you from?”
Bob Hickox’s “Hold your breath: a song of climate change” encapsulates my despair and barely contained frustration and rage at our inaction, what I predict will happen:
“Where we’re drowning / we’ll do something. / When we’re on our roofs. / When we’re deciding between saving / the cute baby or the smart baby.”
Mary Oliver’s “The Fish” illustrates our interconnectedness with all species.
The fourth chapter highlights poems of children, written when the contributors were between the ages of six and eighteen. As has always been the case, we should listen to them more often than we do. Children have a lot more wisdom than we want to think they do:
Katie Friedman “Haiku”
Hit rewind and
the flowers will bloom bright again,
rain will revisit the sky.
Lauryn Brown “Voice”
I hear it,
the whispers of the trees,
melody of the wind,
the woven tale of the soil,
echoing into the past,
into the future.
Nature has a voice
if only you’d listen.
But for all the beauty and alarm of this collection, the poem that fills me with the most hope and amazement is Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things.” Berry, in a few short lines, can move from internal despair to awe, the feeling when we walk out into a still, quiet evening, when the rest of the world is asleep, except nature.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and life down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
May 8, 2019
If I needed hope, this book of wonderful poems gives me such! So often I feel like there is nothing I can do, but, reading these assorted collection of poems about the earth, climate, and nature instills in me such a feeling of love, hope and a call to arms!! Feelings and energy create movement. These poems move me in so many wonderful, powerful ways.
The power of love is unstoppable. These poems, chosen with love, can move mountains. In fact, can save them.
Coupled with a fantastic section of how to help, actions to take, people to join forces with, provides just the tools to utilize to make change happen!
I highly recommend this to everyone!! Read, savor, enjoy, rejoice, then take action to help save our planet. Actions speak louder than words, but, these words instill action...and we ALL have loud voices..unite!!
The power of love is unstoppable. These poems, chosen with love, can move mountains. In fact, can save them.
Coupled with a fantastic section of how to help, actions to take, people to join forces with, provides just the tools to utilize to make change happen!
I highly recommend this to everyone!! Read, savor, enjoy, rejoice, then take action to help save our planet. Actions speak louder than words, but, these words instill action...and we ALL have loud voices..unite!!
April 14, 2020
This is by far the strongest anthology I have read in a long while! It is fabulously diverse, including poetry in translation, poetry by children, poetry by women and people of Color, and poetry that tackles climate change from so many different angles! I love the introduction from the Dalai Lama, and I love the activist information at the end from the Society for Concerned Scientists. This helps bring the poetry into the "real world" where we can all take part in helping to mediate climate change. Fabulous collection!
July 4, 2022
This didn't turn out to be as strong a collection of poems as I'd hoped, but I did enjoy some of the poems of old-familiars it brought together -- Atwood, Oliver, Seibles, etc.
September 8, 2019
I loved my 128 days of poetry! As soon as I picked up Here: Poems for the Planet, edited by Elizabeth J. Coleman and published by Copper Canyon Press, I knew I wanted to savor it, to treat every poem as treasure.
Here was another slow-reading project.
From May 1 to September 8, 2019, I read one poem a day. My rules were: One poem a day until the end (two poems if you forget a day). You may go back and read any poem already read. You may not read ahead. Although, peeking ahead is permitted.
Here includes 128 poems divided into five sections, a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and A Guide to Activism by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, we have the capacity to protect it," writes the Dalai Lama.
It's an international volume which includes a selection of poems written when the poets were between six and eighteen years old.
As I read there were so many poems I reread, lines which captured my attention, and images that caught my breath. I loved reading them aloud to my spouse in the car and talking about them and running across one of the poems from this volume in the London Underground while on vacation (and on a hiatus from my daily readings).
The poems for our planet take us from identifying the problems in "The Gentle Light That Vanishes: Our Endangered World" to inspiring action "Like You Are New to the World."
Some favorite lines:
"...and I thanked you/with humility and joy/for almost flowers/would be flowers blossoming in our fancy/in the lusting flowerbed of my soul and yours—" — "Almost Flowers" by Mordechai Geldman, trans. from Hebrew by Tsipi Keller
"ever want to know what would happen/if your life could be fertilized/by a love thought/from a loved one/who loves you" — "Walking Down Park," Nikki Giovanni
"And what's to say/ we won't soon shed another season, one of these/ remaining two, and live on either an Earth/ of molten streets or one of frozen light?" — "Daily Conscription," Kyle Dargan
"If that old book was true/the first verse would say Embrace/the world. Be friendly. The forests are glad you breathe./I see now/the Earth itself does have a face." — "First Verse," Tim Seibles
"The shimmer of gods/is easier/to perceive at sunrise or dusk," — "The Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles," Joy Harjo
"Disappointed, you say: Common house finch,/as if even banal miracles aren't still pink/and blind and heaving with life..." — "Fledgling" Traci Brimhall
"What did you think, that joy/was some slight thing?" — "Visitation," Mark Doty
Here was another slow-reading project.
From May 1 to September 8, 2019, I read one poem a day. My rules were: One poem a day until the end (two poems if you forget a day). You may go back and read any poem already read. You may not read ahead. Although, peeking ahead is permitted.
Here includes 128 poems divided into five sections, a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and A Guide to Activism by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, we have the capacity to protect it," writes the Dalai Lama.
It's an international volume which includes a selection of poems written when the poets were between six and eighteen years old.
As I read there were so many poems I reread, lines which captured my attention, and images that caught my breath. I loved reading them aloud to my spouse in the car and talking about them and running across one of the poems from this volume in the London Underground while on vacation (and on a hiatus from my daily readings).
The poems for our planet take us from identifying the problems in "The Gentle Light That Vanishes: Our Endangered World" to inspiring action "Like You Are New to the World."
Some favorite lines:
"...and I thanked you/with humility and joy/for almost flowers/would be flowers blossoming in our fancy/in the lusting flowerbed of my soul and yours—" — "Almost Flowers" by Mordechai Geldman, trans. from Hebrew by Tsipi Keller
"ever want to know what would happen/if your life could be fertilized/by a love thought/from a loved one/who loves you" — "Walking Down Park," Nikki Giovanni
"And what's to say/ we won't soon shed another season, one of these/ remaining two, and live on either an Earth/ of molten streets or one of frozen light?" — "Daily Conscription," Kyle Dargan
"If that old book was true/the first verse would say Embrace/the world. Be friendly. The forests are glad you breathe./I see now/the Earth itself does have a face." — "First Verse," Tim Seibles
"The shimmer of gods/is easier/to perceive at sunrise or dusk," — "The Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles," Joy Harjo
"Disappointed, you say: Common house finch,/as if even banal miracles aren't still pink/and blind and heaving with life..." — "Fledgling" Traci Brimhall
"What did you think, that joy/was some slight thing?" — "Visitation," Mark Doty
June 7, 2020
In some materials from the Union of Concerned Scientists, an organization I support, I saw this book promoted, and thought, what a wonderful idea, a collection of poems written for our earth, by multiple writers, from multiple countries.
Alas, my hope for the book far exceeded my reading experience. Perhaps as a quick disclaimer so as not to dissuade others from reading from the book, I have not before picked up books of poetry, I have not been trained to read poems, and thus my approach to reading this collection may be at odds of those who contributed.
The book is organized into five major sections, which, by their subtitles are
• Poems for Our Planet
• Our Endangered World
• Poems for the Animals
• Voices of Young People
• From Aspiration to Action
The poems are followed by a very practical Guide to Activism by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
And while I am overall disappointed with the collection (though not the intent of the collection) there are some poems that did resonate with me. Let me give two of them here:
From For the Children, by Gary Snyder (and the back cover)
In the next century
Or the one beyond that,
They say,
Are valleys, pastures,
We can meet there in peace
If we make it.
To climb these coming crests
One word to you, to you, to
You and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
Image of Kindness, by Esma’il Kho’I, translated from Parsi by Niloufar Talebi
Learn from this tree:
It offers its bountiful canopy of shade
Over your head
Rain or shine;
Rain or shine
No matter whence
You came to it;
And it never,
Not even out of innocent curiosity,
Sizes you up:
“Hey stranger! Where are you from?”
Counter to the editor’s wish, these poems for the most part did not instill me with “fresh eyes and renewed courage.” However, I hope there are others who are so moved, since the effort of the people who contributed is sincere, and the need, urgent.
Alas, my hope for the book far exceeded my reading experience. Perhaps as a quick disclaimer so as not to dissuade others from reading from the book, I have not before picked up books of poetry, I have not been trained to read poems, and thus my approach to reading this collection may be at odds of those who contributed.
The book is organized into five major sections, which, by their subtitles are
• Poems for Our Planet
• Our Endangered World
• Poems for the Animals
• Voices of Young People
• From Aspiration to Action
The poems are followed by a very practical Guide to Activism by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
And while I am overall disappointed with the collection (though not the intent of the collection) there are some poems that did resonate with me. Let me give two of them here:
From For the Children, by Gary Snyder (and the back cover)
In the next century
Or the one beyond that,
They say,
Are valleys, pastures,
We can meet there in peace
If we make it.
To climb these coming crests
One word to you, to you, to
You and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
Image of Kindness, by Esma’il Kho’I, translated from Parsi by Niloufar Talebi
Learn from this tree:
It offers its bountiful canopy of shade
Over your head
Rain or shine;
Rain or shine
No matter whence
You came to it;
And it never,
Not even out of innocent curiosity,
Sizes you up:
“Hey stranger! Where are you from?”
Counter to the editor’s wish, these poems for the most part did not instill me with “fresh eyes and renewed courage.” However, I hope there are others who are so moved, since the effort of the people who contributed is sincere, and the need, urgent.
March 22, 2020
This beautiful book of poems is edited by Elizabeth Coleman, an attorney, a researcher, an environmental activist. Famous and not so famous poets are included - all directed toward our planet and saving the environment. The five sections of the book have poetic titles also: Where You'd Want To Come From, The Gentle Light That Vanishes, As If They'd Never Been, The Ocean Within Them, and Like You Are New To The World. Poets range from people you have never heard of to Wendell Berry to Nikki Giovanni to Margaret Atwood to a section of poems by children (including one by a first grader!). Coleman is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and all the proceeds from the sale of this book go to UCS. The last part of the book is a guide for activism by UCS. The poetry is beautiful and meaningful, the advice is comprehensive and sensible. The book is wonderful - go buy a copy today. We humans are killing this world and all that is in it. Buy a book, read and enjoy it and help save the world.
Read
December 23, 2022This anthology draws together over 125 writers ages, six to eighty-six, representing many regions, races, and walks of life, all deeply aware of the acute climate crisis facing the world we all share. Part praise song, part elegy, this anthology is a call for collective action and includes a guide for activists written with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Look for poems by Gary Snyder, Anne Marie Macari, Fadhil Assultani, John Calderazzo, Natasha Sajé, Tishani Doshi, Kamau Brathwaite, Adam Zagajewski, Lorna Goodison, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Mary Ruefle, Jesús J. Barquet, and many more.
Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2021/08/ele...
Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2021/08/ele...
April 1, 2020
I really liked this a lot. This slim volume is divided into five sections, each with a different theme. Written by poets of different nationalities, in different forms, the overall theme is similar: We are guardians of this planet; we live here. Poem after poem I absorbed, often pausing a few moments between each to contemplate and take in the feelings evoked. The overall tone was gentle, the language lyrical and beautiful, painting portraits that encompassed the globe. Highly recommend to those that would like to try poetry, either for the first time or again.
October 13, 2025
I appreciated this diverse compilation of poetry that focuses on stewarding our earth in a better fashion, as well as the action suggestions at the end of the book. I especially enjoyed the chapter that focused on poems written by young people!
December 2, 2018
Color the movement environmental activism,
just another cause to make-believe in,
save Jonahs, not whales.
#poem
Chris Roberts, God Ascendant
just another cause to make-believe in,
save Jonahs, not whales.
#poem
Chris Roberts, God Ascendant
August 3, 2022
There is a wide variety of poems in this book and some I enjoyed, many not so much. For me the best section is the fourth one written by young people ages 6 - 18.
December 15, 2022
Beautiful, evocative. I enjoyed most of the poems and absolutely love the message they carry. An important body of work, a love song to the dying world and the slender thread of hope that remains.
March 9, 2023
Everyone should read this amazing collection
December 16, 2023
Like all collections: some good, some powerful, some eh. But this collection led me to Nickole Brown's work, for which I'm grateful.
March 19, 2023
Most of these poems sucked.
Hey, how about, instead of getting 200+ poems from WELL KNOWN poets, get some from poets WHO ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO WRITE GOOD POEMS!!!
🤦🏻♂️ 🤦🏻♂️ 🤦🏻♂️
A list of the only poems i liked in this collection:
The Eloquent Crane - Catriona Bolt
How to Be a Hawk - Griffon Bannon
Douglas Fir, Falling - John Calderazzo
Rules of the Mouse - Corinna Davidson
I Am Like a Caterpillar- Betye Arrastia-Nowak
To a Snail - Majid Naficy
Theories of Time and Space - Natasha Trethewey
Walking Down Park - Nikki Giovanni
Hey, how about, instead of getting 200+ poems from WELL KNOWN poets, get some from poets WHO ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO WRITE GOOD POEMS!!!
🤦🏻♂️ 🤦🏻♂️ 🤦🏻♂️
A list of the only poems i liked in this collection:
The Eloquent Crane - Catriona Bolt
How to Be a Hawk - Griffon Bannon
Douglas Fir, Falling - John Calderazzo
Rules of the Mouse - Corinna Davidson
I Am Like a Caterpillar- Betye Arrastia-Nowak
To a Snail - Majid Naficy
Theories of Time and Space - Natasha Trethewey
Walking Down Park - Nikki Giovanni
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews