The University of Georgia has just published a stunning anthology, entitled GHOST FISHING: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, edited by Melissa Tuckey, with a Foreword by the great poet Camille T. Dungy. There are poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, Jane Hirshfield, Joy Harjo, Brenda Hillman, Arthur Sze, Javier Zamora, and many others. I'm honored to have three of my poems included:
The Parable of St. Matthew Island
In the Bering Sea, the Coast Guard brought 29 reindeer to the island as back-up food supply for the nineteen soldiers stationed there. After World War II, the base was closed. Thirteen years later, a thousand reindeer fed on the four-inch thick mat of lichen that covered the island, then six thousand a decade later. In just three more years, travelers found only a small herd, not much lichen, and fields of reindeer skeletons. Soon, it was only skeletons.
The Dreams of Antelope
In Yosemite, they introduced wolves back into the mountains, which fed again on the antelope, which stopped over-eating the willow trees, so the birds returned to sing and beavers started making dams again from the fallen branches, resurrecting the marshes, and once more everything started turning green because a wild predator was allowed back into the dreams of antelope.
A Great Civilization
In the island forests of Bolivia before
any white man found them, the Arawak
cultivated lianas thick as a human arm,
blade-like leaves dangling six feet long
and smooth-boled Brazil nut trees,
the thick-bodied flowers smelling like warm meat.
Earth mounds rose above waters cultivated as canals
for travel between spacious villages framed
by moats and palisades, along which they’d walk
in long cotton tunics, heavy ornaments dangling
from wrists and necks. But in 1927,
anthropologists found their descendents living
in constant hunger, no clothes,
no cows or llamas,
no musical instruments,
no art—except necklaces of animal teeth—
unable to count beyond three, no religion,
no conception of the universe. They
thought they’d stumbled upon a primitive
humankind living in the rawness of nature
for millennia—unaware that when the first
Europeans arrived centuries before, influenza
and smallpox raced ahead, bringing
the Arawak to their knees. And no one
knew, till now: scientists piecing together
records of teeth, shards of pottery,
eco-analysis and voila!
a great mysterious culture heretofore
unknown emerged from the mists
of history. Might we too—
this culture of moon travel,
the great web of internet,
an entire library of world music
in the palm of a hand—one day
be discovered again, as
barefoot entrepreneurs
having lost it all.
Here's a link to more information about the anthology: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/events/145014/poetry-off-the-shelf-ghost-fishing-an-anthology-of-eco-justice-poetry