Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California

Poetry. Environmental Studies. California Interest. Foreword by Dana Gioia. Introduction by Jack Foley. More than 250 poems by 149 contributors, including Ellen Bass, Christopher Buckley, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Camille T. Dungy, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Rebecca Foust, Dana Gioia, Rafael Jesús González, Emily Grosholz, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirshfield, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gary Snyder, and David St. John. FIRE AND RAIN: ECOPOETRY OF CALIFORNIA, edited by Lucille Lang Day and Ruth Nolan, is not only a beautiful and thorough anthology but an homage to California, its varieties of landscapes, and the amazing poetry it has evoked. Like no other collection in its focus, it presents for the reader experiences of life and personal perspectives on the region while also providing an invaluable resource for teachers of creative writing and literature and the ecology, habitats, and species of the state.--Pattiann Rogers, recipient of the John Burroughs Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Poetry The battles environmentalists fight on land, in the legislatures, or in the courts are won or lost first in the human imagination, and the range, depth, and vitality of this selection of poems will take the imagination by storm. As Steve Kowit says in his poem 'Raven': 'Forgive me, / sweet earth, for not being shaken more often / out of the heavy sleep of the self. Wake up! / Wake up! scolds the raven, sailing off / over the canyon. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!' These poems will indeed wake us up.--Malcolm Margolin I went back to soulful, pristine, early James Taylor to make sure I was feeling the wet, cleansing urgency of Lucille Lang Day and Ruth Nolan's burning anthology. Anthology, ecology, mythology, and all the 'ologies' boil down to four-letter words--sacred kissing cousins--love and life. When I pull out Day and Nolan's tarnished gold drawers of poetry and stories, I bask and bathe. My heart thumps. All over our world, we shiver and melt. 'I've seen fire and I've seen rain.'--Al Young Day and Nolan have done a considerable service to select and gather these poems. Their ample anthology provides a generous record of California poets' love and concern for their common world. What more important theme can we in this golden land share?--from the Foreword by Dana Gioia