A new movement of eco poets from Black and Brown communities in the UK is emerging, challenging the traditional canon of nature poetry. This movement is set against the backdrop of the ongoing climate and biodiversity crisis.
Mona Arshi co-edited "Nature Matters," the first UK collection of eco poetry from African, Asian, and Caribbean diaspora voices. She was inspired to create the anthology after a viral social media post asking, "Where are all our black and Asian nature writers?" Arshi noted that many poets from these communities were writing in these spaces but had not been gathered, published, or their work framed as nature poetry.
The anthology, published in the past year, has been adopted by universities and some schools. It has increased interest in nature poetry from perspectives that differ from white, Western, and mainstream culture. This new poetry movement often explores the theme of nature's destruction, which is occurring at unprecedented rates due to global heating, intensive agriculture, pollution, and resource exploitation.
Ralph Pite, a professor of English at Bristol University, stated that this new generation of poets introduces ways of thinking about the environment that mainstream Western culture has previously overlooked. He added that their poetry helps to broaden the idea of who can access and belong in the natural world, moving beyond historical divisiveness.