Writing the Land: Windblown I

Writing the Land: Windblown I is a national anthology of 11 land trusts and 25 poets who wrote poems inspired by their adopted lands across the continent. Information about the land trusts and lands open to the public is included within each chapter as well as the poems. Purchase your copy from any participating land trust.

“Writing the Land is an attempt to honor nature and our relationship with it in a way that is as equitable and transparent as it is deep and entangled. We intend to be as inclusive—to humans and places
—as we hope the mantle of protection that land trusts offer can be. Our work will never be complete but gains strength, depth, beauty, and energy in a multitude of voices.” —-Lis McLoughlin, editor

Includes Lands Protected by:

Branford Land Trust (CT)
Capital Region Land Conservancy (VA)
Flushing Meadows Corona Park (NYC)
Hilltown Land Trust (MA)
Inland Northwest Land Conservancy (WA)
Jefferson Land Trust (WA)
Kansas Land Trust (KS)
The Nature Conservancy in Kansas (KS)
Peconic Land Trust (NY)
Prospect Park Alliance (NYC)
Vermont Land Trust (VT)

Praise for Writing the Land: Windblown I

“Call it by any name you like – environmental ethics, nature appreciation, biophilia – at its heart, conservation is an act of grace, an act of saving the more-than-just-human world.  The combination of land conservation and poetry connects what is seen and experienced amidst the natural world with an understanding of its inherent value.  The poetry in this volume takes this connection one step further, linking this understanding to specific places.  Places that are loved for what they are, full of grace.

---Stephen C. Trombulak, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies, Middlebury College

This remarkable collection introduces us to protected places and kindred spirits who care for them. Just as the land speaks to the poets, these poems speak to us physically.  The pulse of the poetry in combination with captivating photos brings us right there, making this a delectible and essential volume.

--Sarah Pirtle, author of An Outbreak of Peace

 "How to love is an ecology / of awe," writes Kansas poet Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, and indeed, abiding love and reverence for the land permeates these pages. Like a strong wind blowing west to east, poets' and artists' voices rise in joy and celebration documenting the intricate non-human world connecting us across the United States. 

 ----Janet MacFadyen, Managing Editor, Slate Roof Press, and author of  Waiting to Be Born

Poetry is an ideal medium to connect what we feel about the land and our place in relation to it. This collection, as varied as the terrain it covers, reveals the often hidden truths and riddles of the places our land trusts and their partners conserve for us all. It enables us to see what we know is there but somehow have managed to miss, making the abstract more concrete, and the concrete more abstract. And in turn, we better understand, in the throes of the climate crisis, what we as people and the land need to thrive.

--Steve Rosenberg, board member of the Land Trust Alliance and former Executive Director of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust