I have dipped into the anthology, reading a poem here and there since I was given the book by a friend several months ago. Over the last couple of days, I read from start to finish. Finishing a few minutes ago. I have always enjoyed anthologies of poetry, finding new poets (to me), who have turned into favorites over the years. “You are Here” is no different. All of the poems have something to do with the natural world. This is not to say they are Romantic (as in Romanticism). Many of the poems are laments for a dying world, which we (humans) are killing. “She is almost two. I am seventy-five./I won’t be here when the worst/ of what’s coming comes.I think about it/ and then try not to think about it./ and then try to think/ because if we don’t—but I can hardly grasp it.” Ellen Bass writes thinking about the coming climate apocalypse. All of the poets are aware of the world they are observing and engage with it with touches of wit, beauty and horror. My favorite poem “Staircase” is by Jason Schneiderman. I will search out more of his writing. Here is a passage near the end of the stream of consciousness prose poem: “And oh my God, are you as exhausted as I am from grieving the planet? Tell me how not to be hysterical every time I see what’s coming. Every time I see what’s here. Tell me how to accept that it didn’t have to be his way but that it it. Tell me how to accept this sun, this fire, this sky, this day. Dun’t leave me here in these ashes.” The only complaint I have about the anthology is each poem is preface by the poets c.v. each of which read pretty much like the one before it. Too much about credentials of the poet, rather than the pope of the poems. I would rather the focus be on the poems, with the poets bios collected at the end of the anthology. It is the poetry that matters.
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