Earth Prayers

Carol Ann Duffy brings together an anthology of one hundred modern and classic poems which capture moments of revelation, empathy or difference with the non-human and, in doing so, prompt us to rethink our place in the world.

Vita Sackville‑West encounters a frog by torchlight and Norman MacCaig, famously, addresses a toad. Simon Armitage kicks and demolishes a mushroom, while Charlotte Mew mourns the cutting down of elms in her London Street. Keats is transported by the nightingale and Edward Thomas by nettles. Les Murray eulogises his runner‑beans and Liz Lochhead tells us what the pool said on Midsummer’s Day.

With poems ranging from Shakespeare and Chaucer to Bishop, Heaney and Hopkins, this anthology includes out-of-copyright works alongside poems from diverse cultures.

Endorsements

‘Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time’ — Guardian