What do you think?
Rate this book
Canopy: Poems – Powerful Poetry on Climate Crisis, Mortality, and Being Human in the Ecosystem
A long-awaited yet startlingly urgent new collection from “a contemporary master”*—a fierce, big-hearted eye on our last, tumultuous decade, and our fragile environment * Los Angeles Review of Books
Linda Gregerson’s long-awaited new collection is a tour de force, a compendium of lives touched by the radical fragility of the planet and, ultimately, the endless astonishment and paradox of being human within the larger ecosystem, “in a world where every breath I take is luck.”
From the Syrian refugee and ecological crises, to police brutality and COVID, to the Global Seed Vault buried under permafrost, the poems How does consciousness relate to the individual body, the individual to the communal, the community to our environment? How do we mourn a loved one, and how do we mourn strangers?
The magnificent poems in Canopy catalogue and reckon with humanity and the natural world, mortality, rage, love, grief, and survival.
Linda Gregerson’s long-awaited new collection is a tour de force, a compendium of lives touched by the radical fragility of the planet and, ultimately, the endless astonishment and paradox of being human within the larger ecosystem, “in a world where every breath I take is luck.”
From the Syrian refugee and ecological crises, to police brutality and COVID, to the Global Seed Vault buried under permafrost, the poems How does consciousness relate to the individual body, the individual to the communal, the community to our environment? How do we mourn a loved one, and how do we mourn strangers?
The magnificent poems in Canopy catalogue and reckon with humanity and the natural world, mortality, rage, love, grief, and survival.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Hardcover
Published March 22, 2022
7 people are currently reading
1877 people want to read
About the author
Linda Gregerson
22 books20 followersLinda Gregerson is an American poet and member of faculty at the University of Michigan. She recieved her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2014, she was named as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Linda Gregerson is the author of several collections of poetry and literary criticism. Also a Renaissance scholar, a classically trained actor, and a devotee of the sciences, she produces lyrical poems informed by her expansive reading that are inquisitive, unflinching, and tender.
Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for Waterborne
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize finalist for The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep
2000 Guggenheim Fellowship
National Book Award finalist for Manetic North
Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for Waterborne
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize finalist for The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep
2000 Guggenheim Fellowship
National Book Award finalist for Manetic North
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
March 8, 2022
There’s so much in this collection. So much raw emotion. So many deep and terrible subjects. So many things that are felt through the author’s words.
I took my time reading this collection. I gave each poem time to settle before moving to the next. I let the words fill the air rather than just the space within my head. It’s a collection that makes an impact. It’s beautiful and strong and painful. Definitely highly recommended to poetry lovers.
Thanks to the publisher for my advance copy of this collection.
I took my time reading this collection. I gave each poem time to settle before moving to the next. I let the words fill the air rather than just the space within my head. It’s a collection that makes an impact. It’s beautiful and strong and painful. Definitely highly recommended to poetry lovers.
Thanks to the publisher for my advance copy of this collection.
August 3, 2022
Spectacular work from Gregerson, as always.
January 16, 2023
Gregerson is a more brilliant but lesser known version of Louise Gluck. It's reductive to describe her this way, but in all compliments to her. Linda is the better poet. She is more pointed and specific. In this collection she shows she is just as intelligent and collected and constrained as Gluck. But what makes Linda stand out more? Clarity. She does not hit us over the head with what she's trying to say, but the images and poems as whole are just clearer than Gluck. Linda has a way of taking such abstractions and creating revelations, perspectives and epiphanies. I am inspired by her work. My only regret is that I have not heard or read her work sooner...
Read
July 26, 2023Liked the poems about nature/climate change best.
Read
July 27, 2024What a complex book. I'd recommend reading it slowly, not just because the language is so intricate, but because it talks about things that cannot be taken in lightly. And yet, these are the things we all endure at one point or another. I'm glad I read it in July, "when/ gladly the parched eye quenches/ its thirst in blue."
Read
July 12, 2022This was my first time reading Linda Gregg’s poetry and I found the collection to be incredibly compelling. Her poems range in topic but written during the last few years it is only natural that this collection reckons with humanity and our society’s collective sense of grief, love, rage, and survival.
Two standout poems for me were, “Sleeping Bear” with the line, “So many children, so little space in our rubble-strewn hearts,” and “The Long Run,” with the lines, “There’s always a moment before the moment when nothing is ever the same again,” and “Is it something peculiar to us, do you think, this science-will-fix-it, somebody-somewhere-will-figure-out-the-cleanup way of burning through our one shared life.”
Two standout poems for me were, “Sleeping Bear” with the line, “So many children, so little space in our rubble-strewn hearts,” and “The Long Run,” with the lines, “There’s always a moment before the moment when nothing is ever the same again,” and “Is it something peculiar to us, do you think, this science-will-fix-it, somebody-somewhere-will-figure-out-the-cleanup way of burning through our one shared life.”
March 16, 2022
These poems will certainly hold up to a second reading. There are layers and often multiple subjects within a single poem. I had hoped for something more focused on nature, while there are glimpses, these are not fully that.
The publisher’s note in the beginning was appreciated, discussing the use of white space for poetry and how an eBook with an individual choosing the font size, spacing and such, makes it unpredictable how the poem line breaks would occur. I kept that in mind as I read the poem, as these stops are purposeful, and Gregerson had long lines.
It is hard to "rate" poetry as it strikes each individual in a different manner, more so than in fiction or non-fiction. Mood plays a big part of reading as well, at least for myself. I find poetry like a meditation at times, and Gregerson's held up to that view.
Book Rating: 3.5 stars
Thanks to Ecco/Mariner Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
The publisher’s note in the beginning was appreciated, discussing the use of white space for poetry and how an eBook with an individual choosing the font size, spacing and such, makes it unpredictable how the poem line breaks would occur. I kept that in mind as I read the poem, as these stops are purposeful, and Gregerson had long lines.
It is hard to "rate" poetry as it strikes each individual in a different manner, more so than in fiction or non-fiction. Mood plays a big part of reading as well, at least for myself. I find poetry like a meditation at times, and Gregerson's held up to that view.
Book Rating: 3.5 stars
Thanks to Ecco/Mariner Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
June 2, 2024
A sobering collection of poetry with a focus on loss, downfall, and mourning. Ms Gregerson paints her world with shades and smells, sounds and palpable emotions. A beautiful, haunting anthology. I plan to recommend this book to our school's English department.
September 2, 2023
it's so interesting reading contemporary poetry because i know the references. i appreciate the notes at the end, to annotate inspiration or source material for some of the poems. for me, themes were covid, environment, climate change, war/borders, grief, and personal/memoir.
i really liked ARCHIVAL, about the global seed vault and the world to come
from SLEEPING BEAR:
the wind goes on with its/sorting, the lake bed cradles its dead./But part of the language the glacier used/to speak to the sculpted substrate will/include this bit of sediment./We didn't mean to fail you. We were here.
from BEARDED IRIS:
the sibling/blossoms - firstborn, second,/opening in succession - ought/to be a sign of comfort-in-community but/look how the youngest/carry the browning corpses on their shoulders.
from THE LONG RUN - (the arc of the moral universe is long and everything?):
there's always a moment before the moment when nothing/is ever the same again.
I've sometimes taken comfort in the long run, in/the long run some worthier species will, fate willing,/inherit the earth. In the long run the creek bed ... the/coastline ... the karst ... In the long run the fern and the/nautilus speak a single fractal language.
Forgetting hasn't fixed it.
from A KNITTED FEMUR:
Kill the host/they'll find another./Anger must be like that too.
i really liked ARCHIVAL, about the global seed vault and the world to come
from SLEEPING BEAR:
the wind goes on with its/sorting, the lake bed cradles its dead./But part of the language the glacier used/to speak to the sculpted substrate will/include this bit of sediment./We didn't mean to fail you. We were here.
from BEARDED IRIS:
the sibling/blossoms - firstborn, second,/opening in succession - ought/to be a sign of comfort-in-community but/look how the youngest/carry the browning corpses on their shoulders.
from THE LONG RUN - (the arc of the moral universe is long and everything?):
there's always a moment before the moment when nothing/is ever the same again.
I've sometimes taken comfort in the long run, in/the long run some worthier species will, fate willing,/inherit the earth. In the long run the creek bed ... the/coastline ... the karst ... In the long run the fern and the/nautilus speak a single fractal language.
Forgetting hasn't fixed it.
from A KNITTED FEMUR:
Kill the host/they'll find another./Anger must be like that too.
Read
April 1, 2022I really don't want to rate this because I feel like it would be unfair to the author. Simply put, I just didn't get a lot of this poetry. It was very dense and often alluded to (I think) specific situations that I did not have the context to decipher.
Mostly, I found myself confused both with the subject matter of a poem and with the lines themselves. There will always be some formatting issues when putting poetry to e-book format, but one of the sentences I read said:
"I left her to the daily harms I might have seen them coming some of them one of the worst in any case and then but that was different then the illness that had only left me bitten took her altogether in its jaws."
What the hell did I just read? This is of course ommitting the line breaks, but even with the breaks this makes no sense to me. There is no punctuation and it just seems like gibberish. But I'm hesitant to judge it because perhaps the poem got jumbled when being put into this format? Unsure if I am just stupid or if this collection sways back and forth between nonsensical and pretentious.
Perhaps I'll revisit this some day when I have more brain cells at my disposal.
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the ARC of this book.
Mostly, I found myself confused both with the subject matter of a poem and with the lines themselves. There will always be some formatting issues when putting poetry to e-book format, but one of the sentences I read said:
"I left her to the daily harms I might have seen them coming some of them one of the worst in any case and then but that was different then the illness that had only left me bitten took her altogether in its jaws."
What the hell did I just read? This is of course ommitting the line breaks, but even with the breaks this makes no sense to me. There is no punctuation and it just seems like gibberish. But I'm hesitant to judge it because perhaps the poem got jumbled when being put into this format? Unsure if I am just stupid or if this collection sways back and forth between nonsensical and pretentious.
Perhaps I'll revisit this some day when I have more brain cells at my disposal.
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the ARC of this book.
December 11, 2022
Climate change, the pandemic, the polemics of disease, dead siblings, living children, euthanizing a beloved horse (“good boy”—this one got to me), horses suffering and dying from mustard gas in WWI are some of the topics explored here. I particularly liked “Ram of the Week” where the immuno-compromised speaker compares her husband’s long-ago famous sports heroism with his current willingness to “take the hit” of being the person who goes into a COVID world to get groceries and run errands while she stays protected at home. Wonderful analogy and sentiments about marriage and the willingness to risk ourselves to protect those we love. While the writing is certainly thoughtful, I felt distanced from many of the speakers and didn’t “take” to these poems as strongly as I expected to. Still, plenty of food for thought here.
March 6, 2022
I'm picturing who all I'll be telling to read this book, which is five stars in my rating system.
It's hard for me to say I "enjoyed" something stressful. With topics (as indicated by the summary) that have so much to do with death, of family and pets and strangers, of a global pandemic and climate change and racism, this collection was stressful. And maybe a bit close to home.
The word choice, flow, and emphases (parentheticals) really worked for me. The poems lend themselves to being read aloud.
I am not inclined to memorizing lines of prose or poetry, but I do think this is a collection I'll revisit.
I received an advance copy of this collection through Goodreads Giveaway.
It's hard for me to say I "enjoyed" something stressful. With topics (as indicated by the summary) that have so much to do with death, of family and pets and strangers, of a global pandemic and climate change and racism, this collection was stressful. And maybe a bit close to home.
The word choice, flow, and emphases (parentheticals) really worked for me. The poems lend themselves to being read aloud.
I am not inclined to memorizing lines of prose or poetry, but I do think this is a collection I'll revisit.
I received an advance copy of this collection through Goodreads Giveaway.
October 3, 2022
Gregerson is a syntax trapeze artist. Her long, ropy sentences swim through her poems, creating a voice that is at once erudite and quotidian. There's a fierce intelligence behind these poems a piling-on-as-we-look-and-think feeling. A roaming curiosity about family and love and climate crisis and the pandemic. There's a sense of standing next to Gregerson, or, her speaker, and this speaker is painstakingly trying to show us the world from her viewpoint while also demonstrating how doing so is an act of empathy is a way of de-centering the self by allowing the self its positionality (if that makes sense at all).
June 10, 2023
The wind goes
on with its
sorting, the lake bed cradles its dead.
But part of the language the glacier
used
to speak to the sculpted substrate will
include this bit of sediment.
We didn't mean to fail you. We were
here.
If I had the lungs for diving I expect I'd be there
too among the broken ribs and keels.
when clearly
the canopy calls to them and days have passed before you've even
begun,
when nothing in the undergrowth has
prompted so much as a whimper, you
must turn your thoughts to the other bank.
on with its
sorting, the lake bed cradles its dead.
But part of the language the glacier
used
to speak to the sculpted substrate will
include this bit of sediment.
We didn't mean to fail you. We were
here.
If I had the lungs for diving I expect I'd be there
too among the broken ribs and keels.
when clearly
the canopy calls to them and days have passed before you've even
begun,
when nothing in the undergrowth has
prompted so much as a whimper, you
must turn your thoughts to the other bank.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2024
from The Wayfarer
Waste not want not, common
in the countryside.
And sweeter too for messing up
the parable: journey of the soul etcetera
pitfalls avoided
dangers survived. And sometimes
just for fellowship the human gift
of making do.
That the panel itself was once
a living tree is what the living rely on
to give us a date.
Vicissitudes of sun and rain
encoded in growth rings for all to see.
Your time here,
traveler, scarcely leaves a mark. (18)
Waste not want not, common
in the countryside.
And sweeter too for messing up
the parable: journey of the soul etcetera
pitfalls avoided
dangers survived. And sometimes
just for fellowship the human gift
of making do.
That the panel itself was once
a living tree is what the living rely on
to give us a date.
Vicissitudes of sun and rain
encoded in growth rings for all to see.
Your time here,
traveler, scarcely leaves a mark. (18)
August 6, 2024
This might be a personal preference of mine when it comes to poetry, but I find stark references to modern movements remove me from the experience of reading a poem. Gregerson’s poems fail to move me for this reason. I suppose it has to do with the classic “show don’t tell” saying—don’t *tell* me that the planet is dying, *show* me how it’s dying. A poem about our grandchildren having never seen snow is a lot more moving to me than a poem lecturing me about the bad effects of climate change.
February 15, 2023
The author writes about profound loss, the pandemic, injustice, and climate change. I was lucky to get a used copy which had the previous reader’s notes scattered throughout; many of which were just drawn broken hearts. That about says it all.
—so many children, so little space in our rubble strewn hearts. Excerpt from Sleeping Bear
—so many children, so little space in our rubble strewn hearts. Excerpt from Sleeping Bear
Read
December 13, 2024I didn't finish. I initially got excited to read some poetry, and thought it would be mostly nature themes...but it was different than expected. I think I just wasn't in the mood I thought I was in. Still might be good another time
Read
November 12, 2022Notables 2022 #96
October 4, 2023
I really liked these poems. Not quite prose poems, but pointing that direction. Brilliant, thoughtful, about the world, the environment, the pandemic, family and more. Really lovely.
May 12, 2024
I wanted to love this. I just couldn’t. It had some lovely lines and the way it was shaped by the pandemic was fascinating and yet, it just felt so disjointed and underwhelming.
June 8, 2024
i loved this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in poetry! unfortunately my library loan was due before i could reread it but i absolutely plan on getting it again.
February 13, 2022
I may revisit this collection later, but unfortunately, it did not do a lot for me on the first read-through! I liked the imagery, but even after a few days of separation, I am having difficulty remembering specifics. Thanks for Ecco for providing me with an early copy, though! Canopy comes out on March 22.
April 22, 2022
» overview «
stars: ★★☆☆☆
plot: ☆☆☆☆☆
readability: ★★★☆☆
characters: ☆☆☆☆☆
writing: ★★☆☆☆
recommend: ✗
» liked «
- easy to read
» disliked «
- kinda boring
» overall «
nothing phenomenal
stars: ★★☆☆☆
plot: ☆☆☆☆☆
readability: ★★★☆☆
characters: ☆☆☆☆☆
writing: ★★☆☆☆
recommend: ✗
» liked «
- easy to read
» disliked «
- kinda boring
» overall «
nothing phenomenal
January 29, 2023
I enjoyed it but it wasn’t life-altering for me.
June 24, 2022
Thank you to the publisher for this ARC, I am glad to have read it! However, other than some of the standout poems about the natural world, humanity, and the consequences of climate change, this collection ultimately didn't do it for me. (2.5 / 5)
From the publisher: "From the Syrian refugee and ecological crises, to police brutality and COVID, to the Global Seed Vault buried under permafrost, the poems ask: How does consciousness relate to the individual body, the individual to the communal, the community to our environment? How do we mourn a loved one, and how do we mourn strangers?"
I share this description, because this was actually my major qualm with the collection. The author spends so much time attempting to align the works with an array of contemporary issues, that I felt this agenda was taking away from the poetry itself. For me, the politics don't feel naturally integrated into the works and therefore some of them feel to be a bit of a reach for Gregerson's own artistic voice. While I acknowledge it's important for artists to take into account the social issues of today, I don't think every artist necessarily needs to address every issue in their own work.
From the publisher: "From the Syrian refugee and ecological crises, to police brutality and COVID, to the Global Seed Vault buried under permafrost, the poems ask: How does consciousness relate to the individual body, the individual to the communal, the community to our environment? How do we mourn a loved one, and how do we mourn strangers?"
I share this description, because this was actually my major qualm with the collection. The author spends so much time attempting to align the works with an array of contemporary issues, that I felt this agenda was taking away from the poetry itself. For me, the politics don't feel naturally integrated into the works and therefore some of them feel to be a bit of a reach for Gregerson's own artistic voice. While I acknowledge it's important for artists to take into account the social issues of today, I don't think every artist necessarily needs to address every issue in their own work.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews