Terra Firma – serie

As our treatment of nonhuman animals is increasingly implicated in planetary crises—from climate change to global pandemics to unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and species extinction—it’s clear that an urgent reconsideration of our relationship to other animals is not only necessary but overdue.How we write about animals, how we represent them in our poems and stories, doesn’t simply reflect how we relate to them in the world; it also shapes how we treat them. Any cultural shift in how we conceive of other animals requires a shift in how we read and write about them. The New Sentience seeks to help catalyze this shift by ushering in a new kind of animal poetry, what editors Ashley Capps and Allison Titus dub “kinpoetics.” Whereas animals in Western poetry have disproportionately functioned as symbols, the poems in this anthology foreground a meaningful awareness of animal sentience and subjectivity, depicting other animals as individuals with dynamic selfhood, personalities, and emotional lives.Stylistically wide-ranging, the poets featured here, among them Wendell Berry, Lucille Clifton, E. E. Cummings, Mary Oliver, Ross Gay, and Margaret Atwood, apply scrutinous lyrical attention to the animal experience in such surprising and illuminating ways that the reader can’t avoid an earnest reexamination of what humans owe our more-than-human kin. With humility, empathy, and curiosity, the work in this anthology reaffirms the vital connections between humans, animals, and the natural world. This pioneering book will impel readers to a deeper understanding of the lives of the creatures that share our planet and will inspire poets and writers to a more compassionate, meaningful engagement with animal subjects and lives.

“Care work is climate work.” Jennifer Case first encountered this message during the pandemic, while monitoring her daughter’s attempts at virtual learning and trying to keep her toddler from running naked into faculty Zoom meetings. The phrase appeared online beside photos of backyard gardens and essential workers in masks, offering an unexpected validation: caring for others—whether children, the ill, or the earth—is vital work. Intrigued, Case began exploring the connections between personal, domestic, and ecological care. What started as research through the lenses of feminism and economics grew into a larger investigation that touched on environmental thought, Indigenous teachings, disability studies, and the psychology of empathy. Along the way, Case developed a broader spiritual and ecological awareness that changed how she viewed the act of caring itself.Part memoir and part cultural reflection, The Carework Project combines intimate storytelling with research, interviews, and visual art to explore what care means in a time of climate crisis. Case shows how caregiving, often invisible, gendered, or undervalued, is central to our survival. She examines how trauma and burnout affect our ability to connect, and how healing can start with the smallest gestures of attention. The book invites readers to envision a world where care is not a burden but a source of mutual renewal and belonging.Visually striking collage postcards enhance the text. The result is a hybrid work that feels both timely and timeless, honoring the messy, creative, and transformative act of caring for one another and the living world.