Why Poetry Matters in a Time of Ecological Change - The Nature Record

This morning I watched a heron glide over the marsh near my home. No data, no graphs, just a quiet moment of stillness. And yet it told me something true about the world I live in.

We have plenty of numbers. We can track rising seas, tally shrinking forests, model fire risk. That kind of knowledge is essential. But there’s another way of knowing — one rooted in reverence. It’s the kind of knowing that poetry can hold.

That’s why I’m so excited about The Nature of Our Times, a new anthology of poems on nature and change. I wrote the foreword for the book, which I’ve adapted here.

Why Poetry, Now

The poems in this book don’t catalogue species or habitats. They hold grief and gratitude, urgency and wonder. They don’t look away from what’s being lost, but they also refuse despair.

And that feels urgent. Ecological tipping points are no longer abstract — they’re shaping what we eat, breathe, and call home. The scale of change is overwhelming. So is the need for response.

The Larger Work

That urgency is what drove us to launch The Nature Record, an independent effort to understand the state of nature in the U.S. — not just what’s declining or adapting, but how it affects people, communities, and cultures.

We’re building this assessment with scientists, yes, but also with business leaders, practitioners, and people whose ties to place stretch back generations. What unites us is a belief that science and solutions must be partners.

What Poetry Adds

Poetry alone won’t solve the crisis of nature loss. But it shifts what we notice, what we value, what we’re willing to defend. It asks questions that data can’t:

• What does it mean to belong to a place?
• What is lost when a species disappears?
• How do we keep vision alive when the headlines tug us toward despair?

What these poems share is a willingness to pay attention. And that attention is not passive. It’s a form of care.

The Invitation

This anthology and The Nature Record are both about a choice to stay in relationship with a changing world — about staying human in a time of unraveling.

The poet’s job is to say what can’t be said otherwise. The scientist’s job is to seek truth with rigor. Our job — all of us — is to listen, learn, and respond.

That’s the invitation this book offers: to stay connected, to act with care, and to remember that the future is not something we inherit — it’s something we shape. Together.

Share Your Voice

The story of nature isn’t complete without you. To add your voice to the conversation, take a pledge of allegiance to nature — the lands, waters, wildlife, and biodiversity of our world — through this interactive creative exercise. Then visit the gallery to see how others are expressing their connection.

Your words, like your actions, can help shape how we see and care for nature.