Earth Prayers; Edited by Carol Ann Duffy

One hundred poems on the beauty and fragility of the natural world, collated by former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Carol Ann Duffy.

The wonders of nature have inspired poets for centuries, stretching far back beyond the Romantics. Beautifully curated by Carol Ann Duffy, the one hundted poems inEarth Prayersspan widely across time, but in their moments of joy, empathy or difference, even the earliest poems reveal a concern for the welfare of our planet. Duffy brings these early eco-poems into conversation with contemporary voices writing into the environmental crisis, and through this dialogue sounds a clarion call to cherish and defend the planet while we can.

From John Clare to Lucille Clifton to Kathleen Jamie, the poets collected inEarth Prayersspeak at times as stewards and ambassadors of the earth, at others in anger at those who would exploit nature, or to question their own part in its decline. And the earth speaks back: in Stephanie Pruitts Mississippi Gardens the soil bears witness to the worst of human history, while in Poem Jorie Graham relays the earths plea: remember me.

To encounter nature, these poems tell us, is to be humbled, to have our own smallness magnified by the presence of the sublime.Earth Prayersis a testament to the immense beauty of the natural world, and a challenging reminder of our place in the living skein / of which the world is woven.

Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time –Guardian