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National Poetry Day — Special Staff Eco-Picks

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The Weird Folds: Everyday Poems from the Anthropocene / edited by Maria Sledmere and Rhian Williams (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2020)

This anthology from Dostoyevsky Wannabe collects innovative and experimental approaches to ecopoetry. A great lineup of contemporary poets such as Rebecca Tamás, fred spoliar and Nat Raha report back from everyday life in the anthropocene, offering a kaleidoscopic view of our place and impact on the planet.

--Chosen by Will René

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Rag Cosmology / Erin Robinsong (Book*hug, 2017)

Shimmering with linguistic fizz, this Canadian poet’s transverse approach to the eco-lyric is a startlingly original mix of intimacies - both human and non-human. The intersections of sex, joy, coral reefs and trees, pulsing life like sensual and delectable arteries through the diseased anthropocene converge here. Marvellous constellations.

--Chosen by Karen Smith

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City of Rain / Alvin Pang (Ethos Books, 2003)

Pang writes of an urban Singapore and its residents’ relationships with the natural elements that enters its crevices, like the candle flame of sexual tension, like the rain that never stops. In “Anger”, Pang imagines his anger turning “into water, who might drink it in?”

--Chosen by Troy Cabida

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Bloom / Sarah Westcott (Pavilion Poetry, 2021)

In these poems the natural world seeps into a woman’s life and she tries to give it a voice. The poet may feel the voice is inadequate to the task but in the attempt a new way to engage with and write about nature emerges.

--Chosen by Lorraine Mariner