Video Recording for Poetry Anthology

As described on the anthology's website, "Originally envisioned as a companion to the first U.S. National Nature Assessment and now to the work of United By Nature, The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders gathers 210 voices from the arts, ecology, academia, and Indigenous communities from North America giving witness to how nature shapes our lives and how we can shape the future."

That original scientific companionship has shifted and continued through The Nature Record report coming out of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. I am so grateful that the poetry anthology editors reached out to the anthology poets with an opportunity to record messages and read our poems for The Nature Record authors. Those authors met this month and the idea was that they would see our messages as they discussed feedback received on the draft national nature assessment report.

Out of 210 poets in the anthology, 59 (myself included) responded to the call to provide a video message! All are available to view online in this gallery: https://natureofourtimes.poetsforscience.org/videos/ .

I hope that our messages encouraged the authors as they continuing to work on the important effort that is the national nature assessment. The Nature Record report and The Nature of Our Times anthology are products of community and collaboration. How we relate to nature and inhabit our natural world are dependent on how we work with our fellow humans. Our future is contingent on how we, humanity, engage with nature.

As I have been since the anthology released, I am blessed to be a part of its contributor community. The anthology is a part of a larger effort of gathering nature poems (see this gallery) and it is a companion to The Nature Record's draft national nature assessment (the chapters for which can be read online). The work is ongoing, and its results are out there for anyone to enjoy!