I bought Words the Turtle Taught Me by Susan Richardson as a recommendation by Live Canon while I was taking part in their course on writing climate crisis poetry. I'd read/heard one poem from it and thought this was for me. However, I was so bogged down in the world of climate change and reading so many books and articles (as well as poems) about it, that I got to saturation point. I felt I couldn't read anything else. There comes a time when so much reading about and around a subject like the climate crisis when it all becomes too much and you feel rather hopeless about the whole state of affairs. That's where I was at.
Then along came Covid and down days. I began reading through my backlog of books until I came to this one again. Wow! It is good. It is more than a poetry book because after the thirty poems there are notes. The poems were commissioned by the Marine Conservation Society to highlight the Thirty Threatened Species Project. To write the poems Susan attended workshops, lectures, went out on boats to see dolphins and puffins, and researched the species she would be writing about. The second section of the book are comprehensive notes about that process, and how she came to find ways into each poem, The book also has beautiful illustations by Pat Gregory.
The poems are arranged in the order in which they are listed on the register for endangered species from of Least Concern, Data Deficient, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered. The title of the poem doesn't always give away the type of species the poem is about, but under the title is the creature's latin name, so the poem Charmed has the latin name listed as Balaenoptera borealis, which is Sei Whale.
I love Susan's use of rhyme (not end rhymes necessarily, few of those), but internal rhyme, how words chimed with each other directing the rhythm. Descriptions were visual and often ethereal.
Reading the notes really brought alive the poems, and I will re-read these again with a little more understanding. I found it interesting reading Susan's process of writing each poem. The discussion on how you engage people in the climate crisis and whether poetry has a part to play in it was something discussed in the Climate Crisis poetry course. I always feel that when I talk about the climate/environment I am preaching to the converted, because those who don't engage are usually not the ones who read poetry either! I am not sure how you change the minds of some, but having seen what happened in the early stages of Covid, my theory is sadly they will not do anything until it affects them or their family. Things happening in the ocean, far off lands and to others does not directly impact on them. A line in the poem Brink which is about the plight of Puffins highlights this - It's a sad to see but clearly not my fault away. This and another line - It's a sorry, I just haven't got the time away - really resonated with me.
I'm one of those people who posts quite a lot about the environment on my Facebook page and I always know who will 'like' and those who will just ignore it. We become horrified at he bush fires in Australia with people fleeing and animals with severe burns, but how many actually did something, changed something in their lives, one small thing that might help to combat climate change? I think you can tell that I am passionate about these things, and I will not apologise. We all have a responsibility to this planet. We live on it, feed off it and use it. If we don't do it responsibly we will soon be like the Dipturus batis (Common Skate), on the Critically Endangered list.
