Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin

by R.B. Lemberg (Editor), Lisa M. Bradley (Editor)

As a tribute anthology, Climbing Lightly Through Forests gathers multiple the poets are responding to Ursula K. Le Guin, her work, or their own responses to her or her work; and as editors, Lemberg and Bradley put the poets in conversation with each other and with the readers. This anthology is enriched by the work of poets from all over the Greece, Uruguay, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, the UK, Australia, and Canada, in addition to the United States.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

158 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 29, 2021

About the author

R.B. Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe to the US. R.B.'s Birdverse novella The Four Profound Weaves (Tachyon, 2020) is a finalist for the Nebula, Ignyte, Locus, and World Fantasy awards, as well as an Otherwise Award honoree. R.B.'s poetry memoir Everything Thaws will be published by Ben Yehuda Press in 2022. Their stories and poems have appeared in Lightspeed Magazine’s Queers Destroy Science Fiction!, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, We Are Here: Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction
Anthology, and many other venues. You can find R.B. on Twitter at @rb_lemberg, on Patreon at http://patreon.com/rblemberg, and at their websites rblemberg.net and birdverse.net.

Reviews

[Bogi Takács]

I worked on this a bit to help Lisa and R.B. sort through submissions, and I also picked a bunch of lines from Le Guin's poems as potential titles. I can't review the book due to the obvious conflict of interest, but I was one of the first to read it :)

[Caroline Bock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm working my way through STEERING THE CRAFT by the famous feminist sci-fi writer Ursula LeGuin -- a book I'd highly recommend for any writers. And in the book is poetry -- her poetry. Then, I spotted this anthology CLIMBING LIGHTLY THROUGH FORESTS which is in honor of her poetry -- and I know it's one step removed from reading her poetry, but it intrigued me.

Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew

This brand-new anthology by one of my favorite small presses, Aqueduct Press, has dozens of poems by poets across the world -- one of my favorites is Eva Papasoulioti's 'Time is Being and Being Time' which starts: 'And Chronos said, Let there be Time.'

But even more so, and why this collection is so worthwhile, are the series of retrospective readings on Le Guin's poetry by R.B. Lemberg, who writes an each on each one of Le Guin's nine books of poetry and focuses more on her poems about aging as a woman than about her political poems. "Dark/of even deepens into night/and the sea becomes sleep." This is the Le Guin line that ends her critique and it is pitch perfect. I can now go, in my roundabout way, and read Le Guin's poetry with these thoughtful critiques in mind.

-- Caroline

[Amelinda Bérubé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving and fascinating. I'm more familiar with Ursula Le Guin's novels and essays than her poetry, but this book makes me want to remedy that.

[Debbie Gascoyne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my review on Strange Horizons here:

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fictio...

[Mary Soon Lee]

This book contains both a wealth of poems connected to Le Guin and her work, and a thoughtful retrospective of Le Guin's poetry written by R.B. Lemberg. Possible bias note: one of my poems is reprinted in the volume. It's very difficult for me to consider this book objectively. Le Guin is one of the handful of authors whose work I love most, and I have loved her work for a long time, since I was eight or nine years old. I very much liked many of the poems in this collection, but I presume they resonated partly because I am already familiar with -- and moved by -- Le Guin's work.

I have read almost all Le Guin's fiction, much of which, short or long, is superb. I've also read much of her non-fiction, and found it very good. Yet I have read comparatively little of her poetry. So while I found Lemberg's comments upon her poetry interesting, I didn't have the background to appreciate them fully.

Overall: highly recommended for anyone who likes Le Guin's work.

About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. In the case of poetry books, for various reasons, I often omit an overall star rating.

[Goran Lowie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful tribute!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know that the works of Ursula K Le Guin have been deeply meaningful to me. Obviously they have been to others. This is a lovely collection of poems in honor of Le Guin. They are about various topics including stories, books, poems, and essays. They are about the lands she loved. I wish Le Guin could have seen these poems. I am glad others could find words for how much she meant to me. Only suggest if you are a Le Guin fan. There is a long essay at the end of the book about her poetry. The 5 stars is for the poetry and the people who loved her and her work.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was on-read for so long because it is actually two very different parts and I had stalled on the second. The first part is a collection of incredible, heartwrenching poems. I sobbed my way through the first section. I am so honored to be a part of this collection and to see my poem side by side with others such incredible caliber. It is flooring. The second part is a really interesting academic study on Ursula's poetry itself. That section definitely made me want to read more of Ursula's poetry and helped me to contextualize her poetry within her larger canon.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection.

(I read the poems and not the essay as I haven't yet read any of Le Guin's poetry. I will return once I have)