Description
2023 Nautilus Book Award Gold Winner in Poetry
17th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist
An elegant work of ecopoetry and a profound encounter with the real and potential losses of climate change
THERE ARE STILL WOODS is a radiant appraisal of life at the precipice of climate crisis and a haunting elegy for all we stand to lose. Through alternating lenses, from the speculative to the spiritual, from motherhood to science to mythology, Hila Ratzabi looks out at our wounded but vibrant planet and the animal experience of living on it. These poems bear witness to the force and fragility of the natural world and grapple with the complexities of being a human in that landscape: being implicated, vulnerable, humbled, dazzled. These poems are ways of framing and enduring loss, personal and collective and cultural, real and potential and anticipated. They impart a heightened appreciation for the solid and fleeting beauty that surrounds us. Here is an ode to the earth, a vision of its end, a celebration of its endurance, an aching and eloquent plea for intercession on its behalf. Ratzabi’s first collection is a howl, a prayer, a premonition, a reawakening, and an urgent call to action.
Poetry. Environmental Studies.
Author Bio
Hila Ratzabi's poetry has been published in Narrative, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook The Apparatus of Visible Things and the recipient of numerous fellowships. Ratzabi previously served as editor-in-chief and poetry editor of Storyscape and holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently the director of virtual content and programs at Ritualwell.org and lives outside Chicago with her partner and two children.
Author City: OAK PARK, IL USA