Review of “100 Poems To Save the Earth” eds Zoe Brigley and Kristian Evans, Seren 2021

This is my month for reviewing anthologies. Two, which have in common both “100 Poems” in the title and a certain ambiguity as to the remit. I should mention that I have a poem in this one, though as usual I feel I can reasonably review the rest of it. 

The introduction makes it clear that the title is deliberately “provocative”; the editors do not imagine that poems can of themselves save anything. What they hope for is that reading them can inspire people to “slow down”, “pay attention and notice what we have been missing.” So, eco-poetry, but the intro also states “we have abandoned a traditional view of “nature poetry” or “environmental writing”, especially where it sidelines particular groups (eg people of the global majority/BAME/BIPOC writers, LGBTQ+ poets, or writers with disabilities)”
 

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