Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority

by Karen McCarthy Woolf
Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority cover
Good Books rating 4.26
Anthologies (Multi-author)
Technical:
  • ID: 356
  • Added: 2025-09-10
  • Updated: 2025-09-10
  • ISBN: 9780571370306
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Published: 2025-05-20
  • Reviews: 4

Nature Matters, edited by poets Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf, challenges the dominance of Western European voices in nature writing by presenting a diverse collection of poems from Black, Asian, and global-majority poets. This anthology spans fifty years of work, combining new commissions with formative pieces that explore themes such as climate crisis, the Anthropocene, urban nature, and radical empathy, all while pushing formal boundaries and ecological inquiry. Committed to revitalising conversations around environmentalism and ecopoetics, Nature Matters offers a rich, image-driven, and formally diverse collection that highlights alternative histories, Indigenous wisdom, and future ecologies. The anthology is both urgent and inspirational, providing a vital platform for voices often excluded from the nature poetry tradition and inviting readers to reconsider the relationship between humanity and the natural world through a decolonial lens.

Reviews
Faber & Faber · 2025-05-22
vigorous 4.00

Praised as a vigorous and timely hymn to the universality of nature, this anthology is noted for filling a significant gap in nature poetry by including global majority voices.

The review presents the anthology as a powerful and necessary addition to nature poetry, emphasizing its role in highlighting voices that have been previously overlooked in the genre. It is described as a 'vigorous and timely hymn' that celebrates the shared human experience of nature, while also addressing the lack of diversity in traditional nature writing. This perspective underscores the anthology's importance not only as a literary work but also as a cultural intervention that challenges and expands the existing canon. The collection is recommended for its fresh and inclusive approach, which brings vital new perspectives to environmental and ecological poetry.

Quick quotes

    A vigorous and timely hymn to the universality of nature.

    It's amazing that Nature Matters hasn't existed until now.

    Revitalising conversations surrounding environmentalism and ecopoetics.

London Review Bookshop · 2025-05-22
urgent 4.30

The anthology is recognized for its urgent and inspirational contribution to ecopoetics, bringing together a broad range of voices from the African, Asian, and Caribbean diaspora.

This perspective appreciates the anthology's role in revitalising environmental discourse through poetry by including a diverse array of global majority voices. It highlights the collection's urgency and inspirational quality, suggesting it offers important new insights and challenges to the traditional nature poetry canon. The review implies that the anthology is a crucial step toward inclusivity in the genre, providing readers with a wider and richer understanding of nature and environmentalism. It positions the book as both a literary and cultural milestone that resonates with contemporary ecological concerns and diverse cultural experiences.

Quick quotes

    Revitalising conversations around environmentalism and ecopoetics.

    This new gathering of African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices is both urgent and inspirational.

    Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority.

Shakespeare and Company · 2025-05-22
groundbreaking 4.50

The collection is described as an urgent and inspiring rebalancing of nature writing, featuring diverse voices that explore ecological themes with formal and visual richness.

This perspective emphasizes the anthology’s role in challenging the dominance of Western European nature writing by incorporating voices from African, Asian, and Caribbean diasporas. The poems are noted for their formal diversity and rich imagery, tackling critical issues like climate crisis, urban nature, and Indigenous wisdom. The anthology is celebrated for being a groundbreaking and timely testament to nature’s universality, with endorsements praising its profound cultural and ecological relevance.

Quick quotes

    Revitalising conversations around environmentalism and ecopoetics, this new gathering of African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices is both urgent and inspirational.

    Image-rich and formally diverse, the poems explore fundamental and ecological themes including climate crisis and the Anthropocene; urban nature, solitude and alienation; protest and radical empathy; Indigenous wisdom and alternative histories.

    'A vigorous and timely hymn to the universality of nature. It's amazing that Nature Matters hasn't existed until now.' Sathnam Sanghera

NetGalley · 2025-05-22
meaningful 4.25

The anthology is recognized for presenting nature poetry from global-majority perspectives, featuring a visually rich and formally diverse collection that invites reconsideration of the genre.

This review underscores the anthology’s effort to expand the traditional boundaries of nature poetry by including voices from the global majority, thus enriching the genre. The poems are described as both image-rich and formally varied, covering ecological and social themes that resonate with contemporary environmental concerns. This makes the anthology a meaningful and necessary addition to nature poetry, encouraging readers to engage with new perspectives and histories.

Quick quotes

    Nature Matters. Vital Poems from the Global Majority.

    Nature poetry from global-majority perspectives.

    Image-rich and formally diverse.

Appears in Lists