Letters To The Earth
Letters To The Earth is a collection of letters written to a planet in crisis, from people across the world — artists, writers, children and here, Mary Oliver with her 1978 poem Sleeping In The Forest.
Founded by Anna Hope, Jo McInnes, Kay Michael and Naomi Wirthner, Letters To The Earth was forged following the group’s collective concern over the increasingly dire news of climate and ecological collapse and desire to bring this news to forefront of the public conversation. As theatre-makers and writers they wanted to facilitate a creative response to these times of emergency, and so created Letters To The Earth. The responses were then published by Harper Collins as part of the Culture Declares Emergency movement. You can find out more about Letters To The Earth, including their latest call out, Letters In Lockdown, here.
Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was an American writer of poetry and prose born in Cleveland, Ohio. Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1984, Oliver’s work tiptoes along the lines between the human and the natural world, and as a poet was described by Alicia Ostriker as being “as visionary as Ralph Waldo Emerson,” and “among the few American poets who can describe and transmit ecstasy, while retaining a practical awareness of the world as one of predators and prey.”
“These letters are in conversation, they talk to each other, plot rebellion and conspire about something called hope. They document the global, intergenerational conversation about the future of our earth that we are all a part of – between children and grandparents, politicians and activists, scientists and playwrights. Collectively, they dare us to imagine a new story, one that rethinks and reimagines how we do everything.”
