A new poetry anthology has been praised in the editorial columns of a national newspaper. Earth Prayers, edited by the former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, was highlighted in a Guardian editorial, which said:  “The 100 poems, ranging from classics such as Matthew Arnold’s 1867 ‘Dover Beach’ to ‘#ExtinctionRebellion’ by Pascale Petit, remind us not just of the beauty of the natural world, but its fragility.”

It went on: “After the floods in Spain, not to mention the return of a US president who promises to withdraw from global climate accords, these poems take on fresh urgency. Clare Shaw’s ‘Catastrophic Devastation; Damage Complete’, describing the flooding in northern England in 2015 – “Enough of toppled trees, uprooted; enough of major structures shifted, / Enough of wood and concrete lifted, enough of nothing left…” – evokes scenes that have become all too familiar across the globe.”

Clare Shaw reacted on Instagram: “Flipping lovely that one of my flood poems got a mention in the Guardian today, alongside Pascale Petit and Kathleen Jamie. We’re all in a new Picador anthology - “Earth Prayers: encounters in poetry with the natural world”. It feels very fitting after spending the weekend talking about the wonderful, endangered world of bogs.”

The editorial goes on to say: “Since his appointment in 2019, Simon Armitage vowed to put the climate emergency at the heart of his laureateship, donating his £5,000 fee to the Laurel prize awarded to a collection highlighting the crisis. The ceremony is part of Summit, a landmark eco-poetry festival bringing together poets, writers and climate scientists. Armitage’s latest collection, Blossomise, is both a celebration of blossom and a warning at the alarming ways in which seasonal norms are being disrupted. From the spoken-word collective Hot Poets to anthologies of new work such as Out of Time, edited by the poet and palaeontologist Kate Simpson, the poetry community is rising to the challenge.

“But what of the much-quoted WH Auden line that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’? In the face of extinction threats, a poem seems a particularly puny adversary. Poetry might not make things happen, but it can make us see things differently, especially in times of crisis. The Romantics held nature up against industrialisation and helped define the modern world. With Monday being Armistice Day, and with so much global conflict, the legacy of the first world war poets in changing perceptions of battle cannot be overestimated.

“A poem is a moment in time in language, and as such all poems are elegies. It is no wonder poetry is being repurposed for our ‘age of grief’. But it does not only speak of loss. A poem can make us feel and understand things with a clarity sometimes lost in a blizzard of scientific data. Great poetry endures. It inspires a sense of wonder, joy and connection with nature that is entirely hopeful. And hope is something we need more than ever.”