Cooke wants us to shake us loose from our tired habits of perception, I think, because this is a crucial step towards responding to the challenges of our climate crisis. We have to rethink, and ultimately dissolve, the Man-Nature dichotomy and the implicit sublimation of Nature that shapes every aspect of our interaction with it. And we have to rethink this relationship that is at the very centre of our understanding of being if we are to fashion any kind of meaningful response, or risk losing every speck of brilliance, of imagination, of love and care and growth that has been part of the human experience. That’s not to say these poems are dark and dour, rather they compel urgency by depicting the stakes.

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