Instead of posting a poem this week, I want to highlight a collection of poetry that I often go back to read again, The Ecopoetry Anthology, edited by Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street. As important as is this hefty collection of poems written by talented poets is the cover blurb by Edward Hirsch, a poet whom I admire: “A necessary book, a radical intervention, a daring collection of human calls and cries which respond to our endangered and disappearing world.” In addition to that advice is the hefty intro by Robert Hass, “American Ecopoetry: An Introduction.” If you never read all the poems, do read Hass’s intro. It’s a full semester’s worth of wisdom.

The book was published by Trinity University Press in 2013 and, given its dog-eared pages and marginal notes, my copy looks and is well loved. Not everything on the 628 pages speaks to me, but so much does that I recommend you find a copy and treasure it as much as I do. Keep it nearby, learn from it, do your part in raising awareness of the need to treasure and honor the environment.

KVD