Description

Edited by Jesse Lee Kercheval

ISBN 978-1-944884-14-7
156 pages: $16.00 — November, 2016

Other Purchase Options: Small Press Distribution

Earth, Water and Sky: An Anthology of Environmental Poetry showcases ten Argentine and Uruguayan poets writing about the pressing issues that face our planet and how to build a a sustainable future. Editor Jesse Lee Kercheval has paired poets and translators to produce a bilingual anthology that is both inspirational and instructive and reminds us how powerfully poetry can touch our minds and hearts.

The poets were selected from a call for the SARAS (South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies) Prize in Poetry. SARAS is a transdisciplinary institute designed to help South America build a sustainable future. The three prize winners: Natalia Romero of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sebastian Rivero of Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay; and Virginia Lucas of Montevideo, Uruguay attended the annual SARAS conference in Uruguay and read their work to the assembled scientists. This collection includes the prize winners and seven other selected poets dedicated to integrating art with social and natural sciences.

Earth, Water and Sky covers an enormous range of imaginative and political terrain. This is an eye-opening, urgent and deeply moving collection. 
–Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

The poets in Earth, Water and Sky remind us of what today’s rampant consumerism would have us forget: that true citizenship in this wondrous space requires both witness and stewardship, celebration as well as critique. I can think of no better medium to convey these truths than poetry. Earth, Water, and Sky is essential reading. 
–Quan Barry, author of Loose Strife

These are important, necessary poems that delve deep beneath the surface of the natural world they seek to preserve. The compelling voices gathered in Earth, Water and Sky not only demand to be heard, they demand that we stand up and do something about it. 
–Kevin A. Gonzalez, author of Cultural Studies

This bilingual anthology, beautifully edited by Jesse Lee Kercheval, herself a poet and translator, provides necessary glimpses into South American environmental poetry. Along with earth, water and sky, weasels, otters, and tourists with cameras inhabit these poems, as well as “little urban rivers along the unpaved streets,” as Virginia Lucas (translated by Jen Hofer) writes. These eco-poems remind us that eco-consciousness must be global as well as home-grown. 
–Sharon Dolin, author of Manual for Living

Contents:

Natalia Romero (Primer Premio) translated by Seth Michelson

Sebastián Rivero (Segundo Premio) translated by Catherine Jagoe

Virginia Lucas (Tercer Premio) translated by Jen Hofer

Martín Barea Mattos translated by Mark Statman

Luis Bravo translated by Catherine Jagoe

Ignacio Fernández de Palleja translated by Ron Salutsky

Elena Lafert translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin

Mariela Laudecina translated by Seth Michelson

Tatiana Oroño translated by Jesse Lee Kercheval

María Sánchez translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin