Nature Matters - by Mona Arshi & Karen McCarthy Woolf (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

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

There has been a welcome surge of nature writing in recent years. Yet this has raised questions as to whose voices are privileged and heard in a space predominantly occupied by Western European traditions and authors. In Nature Matters, poets Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf seek to redress this imbalance. Their genre-enriching anthology presents brand-new commissions alongside formative works from the past fifty years that invite us to reconsider nature poetry from global-majority perspectives. 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

"An exquisitely profound and groundbreaking testament to our natural world by many of the most powerful poetic voices of our times." - Bernardine Evaristo

Contributors:

Victoria Adukwei Bulley, John Agard, Jason Allen-Paisant, Moniza Alvi, Anthony Anaxagorou, Raymond Antrobus, Mona Arshi, Andre Bagoo, Khairani Barokka, Dzifa Benson, Jay Bernard, Sujata Bhatt, Malika Booker, Kamau Brathwaite, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Mary Jean Chan, Kayo Chingonyi, David Dabydeen, Fred D'Aguiar, Kwame Dawes, Imtiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Inua Ellams, Richard Georges, Lorna Goodison, Mina Gorji, Will Harris, Ranjit Hoskote, Sarah Howe, Ian Humphreys, Sharan Hunjan, Ishion Hutchinson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Anthony Joseph, Bhanu Kapil, Jackie Kay, Mimi Khalvati, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Zaffar Kunial, Hannah Lowe, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Roy McFarlane, Nick Makoha, E. A. Markham, Momtaza Mehri, Kei Miller, Daljit Nagra, Karthika Naïr, Grace Nichols, Selina Nwulu, Gboyega Odubanjo, Oluwaseun Olayiwola, Nii Parkes, Sandeep Parmar, Pascale Petit, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Alycia Pirmohamed, Nina Mingya Powles, Taz Rahman, A. K. Ramanujan, Nisha Ramayya, Shivanee Ramlochan, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Roger Robinson, Denise Saul, Seni Seneviratne, Olive Senior, Warsan Shire, Jeet Thayil, Marvin Thompson, Derek Walcott, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Rushika Wick, Jennifer Wong and Benjamin Zephaniah

About the Author

Mona Arshi's poetry collections include Small Hands (Liverpool University Press, 2015), Dear Big Gods (Liverpool University Press, 2019) and Mouth (Chatto & Windus, 2025). She was poet in residence at Cley Marshes, Norfolk, in 2020 and a fellow in the creative arts at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Karen McCarthy Woolf was poet in residence at the Promise Institute for Human Rights as a postdoctoral Fulbright Scholar at UCLA, and is an RSL/Jerwood Poetry Fellow. Her books include An Aviary of Small Birds (Carcanet Press, 2014), Seasonal Disturbances (Carcanet Press, 2017) and Top Doll (Dialogue Books, 2024).