The poems in Jean Stevens’ latest collection are reflections on our relationship with the earth. They express delight in nature but also lament its loss in the uncertain times in which we live.
There is a longing for more connection: that night in my cage of sleep I dreamt of hares in the wild; and a wish to explore the edgelands between the wild and the tame: something unknown is there in the space.
Other poems express a foreboding that is at times apocalyptic: for three days now there have been no birds. Sometimes the tone is biblical: a voice came out of the mountain. A child’s innocence throws out a lifeline of hope: Maddie’s in touch with the earth, Maddie is running free.
A timely plea for us all to speak to the earth.
These are searching, restless poems, haunted by both darkness and light, by how we damage the earth and how we are forever connected to it. Their yearning for what is tender within us as well as what is wild is both a surprise and a delight.
Kim Moore
Persuasive and deeply moving
The Yorkshire Times
For Jean Stevens, love, grief, elegy, longing are insuperable states of mind, as natural as the taking of measured breaths
Stevens’ relationship with landscape is existentially-charged, and in Speak to the Earth – a message of love and nourishment to the visible universe – she offers a fitting libation to a natural world which continues to give her comfort in times of retreat and contemplation.
Steve Whitaker
Jean Stevens’ previous poetry collections have been warmly received.
Filmic and beautiful, full of warmth and drama
Kay Mellor OBE
An exciting contemporary voice
Daljit Nagra
Persuasive and deeply moving
The Yorkshire Times
A sure hand
Ian McMillan
This new collection could possibly be her best yet.
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