Ecocentricity Blog: Poetry for the Planet

It’s going to be a short post today, mainly because I want to lift up the work of someone else. A friend of mine sent me a 2018 Youtube video of a young poet reciting a poem she wrote about climate action (thanks Deron!). The poet’s name is Amanda Gorman, and though I hadn’t heard of her previously, I think I should have. She’s tremendously talented and already accomplished in her 22 years, and her star is only rising higher. She has been invited to share a poem at the Biden Inauguration, which will make her the youngest inaugural poet for a president in American history.

Here’s the Youtube video of that 2018 poem titled “Earthrise.” And for those who prefer to read poetry, you can find the words here (but seriously, watch the video too). It’s beautiful, and captures so well the why of what I, and so many others, do. Her words explain why I’ve dedicated my life to reversing global warming, and I’d like to leave you with one particularly powerful stanza:

Together we do this and more
Not because it’s very easy or nice
But because it is necessary,
Because with every dawn we carry
the weight of the fate of this celestial body orbiting a star.
And as heavy as that weight sounded, it doesn’t hold us down,
But it keeps us grounded, steady, ready,
Because an environmental movement of this size
Is simply another form of an earthrise.

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CONTACT: Valerie Bennett, valerie@raycandersonfoundation.org, 770-317-5858