Welcome to the Nature Up Bookshelf

“Habitat Threshold” by Craig Santos Perez

 

July-August 2022 Featured Book

Habitat THreshold by Craig Santos Perez

About the book: “Craig Santos Perez has crafted a timely collection of eco-poetry that explores his ancestry as a native Pacific Islander, the ecological plight of his homeland, and his fears for the future. The book begins with the birth of the author’s daughter, capturing her growth and childlike awe at the wonders of nature. As it progresses, Perez confronts the impacts of environmental injustice, the ravages of global capitalism, toxic waste, animal extinction, water rights, human violence, mass migration, and climate change. Throughout, he mourns lost habitats and species, and confronts his fears for the future world his daughter will inherit. Amid meditations on calamity, this work does not stop at the threshold of elegy. Instead, the poet envisions a sustainable future in which our ethics are shaped by the indigenous belief that the earth is sacred and all beings are interconnected—a future in which we cultivate love and ‘carry each other towards the horizon of care.’” Learn more on the book's page.

Why Carolyn picked this book to feature:

Craig Santos Perez ties together so many of the threads that weave together climate change: consumerism, our food systems, habitat destruction, colonialism, and the racist structures that our world is built on. These poems give voice to the helplessness parents feel as they wonder what kind of world they’re leaving their kids. He also sings of hope: that we can keep working to fix this, and that the Earth is resilient. I feel like a lot of us struggle with these things too—knowing exactly how deep we are into a climate catastrophe, avoiding apocalypse fatigue and desensitization, and still surfacing to find the joy in nature, and in sharing nature with those we love. As I read this book, I connected with Santos Perez as a parent and one who cares deeply about the environment. This book also underscored exactly how privileged my white/cis/hetero/non-island life has been. Keep on poking at your privilege—you can’t grow if you aren’t aware of it.

Quote we love: 

Love in a Time of Climate Change
Recycling Pablo Neruda’s “Sonnet XVII”

I don’t love you as if you were rare earth metals,
conflict diamonds, or reserves of crude oil that cause
war. I love you as one loves the most vulnerable
species: urgently, between the habitat and its loss.

I love you as one loves the last seed saved
within a vault, gestating the heritage of our roots,
and thanks to your body, the taste that ripens
from its fruit still lives sweetly on my tongue.

I love you without knowing how or when this world
will end. I love you organically, without pesticides.
I love you like this because we’ll only survive

in the nitrogen rich compost of our embrace,
so close that your emissions of carbon are mine,
so close that your sea rises with my heart.

Other Resources:

Craig Santos Perez performs his spoken word piece “Spam’s Carbon Footprint II” (YES! Magazine).

 

Bookshelf Artwork by Green Sparrow Arts