The results of the 20th Annual American Best Book Awards have been announced, and we are thrilled to share that Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States is the winner in the Poetry Anthology category!
One of the world’s largest international book award programs, the American Best Book Awards were launched by American Book Fest in 2003. Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Wiley, Hachette Books, McGraw-Hill, Routledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Johns Hopkins University Press, The White House Historical Association, American Bar Association, HCI Press, Bear & Company, Shambhala Publications and hundreds of national and international independent houses contributed to this year’s competition.
Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States, edited by Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows Luisa A. Igloria & Aileen Cassinetto and NCA5 Chapter Lead Dr. Jeremy S. Hoffman, was created out of the need to tell our human stories, alongside the science of the NCA5, and is offered as a companion to the Fifth National Climate Assessment. Contributors include Ernesto L. Abeytia, Bradley Allf, Anna Bartel, Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Mary Grace Bertulfo, Amanda M. Blake, Dave Bonta, Cassandra Bousquet, Allen Braden, Cynthia Buiza, Kate Cell, Eva Chen, Everett Cruz, Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon, Sofia Fall, Molly Fisk, Mary Fitzpatrick, Eric Forsbergh, Sue Davis Gabbay, Lee Anne Gallaway-Mitchell, Gail Giewont, Caitlin Gildrien, Annette Holland, John Hoppenthaler, Catherine Hulshof De La Peña, Dr. Sam Illingworth, E.W.I. Johnson, Melinda Koyanis, Marisa Lin, Karen Llagas, Katharyn Howd Machan, David S. Maduli, Kindra McDonald, Joshua McPeak, Mac Mestayer, Claire Millikin, Rajiv Mohabir, Heidi Mordhost, Susanne Moser, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, January Gill O’Neil, Calvin Olsen, Craig Santos Perez, Jeanine Pfeiffer, Ngoc Pham, Alice Plane, Kyle Potvin, Aman Rahman, Chelsea Rathburn, Sheri Reda, Kim Roberts, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Ellen Sander, Alan Semerdjian, Emily Schulten, Jordan Sher, Kim Shuck, Martha Silano, Brian Sonia-Wallace, Erika Spanger, Mark Spitzer, Eileen R. Tabios, Ellen Taylor, Sony Ton-Aime, Angela Narciso Torres, Brian Turner, Cindy Veach, Claire Wahmanholm, Leana Weissberg, Lesley Wheeler, Wendi White, Denise Wilcox, Maw Shein Win, Diana Woodcock, Khaty Xiong, & U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.
The anthology, which grew out of the National Poets Laureate civic projects, was made possible with support from the Academy of American Poets and Mellon Foundation‘s laureate initiative and a grant from the San Mateo County Office of Arts and Culture & San Mateo County Arts Commission, with programmatic and/or promotional support from the American Geophysical Union, Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Burlingame Public Library, Clarion Performing Arts Center, The Climate Museum, Elizabeth River Project & Ryan Resilience Lab, Elizabeth River Trail, Exploratorium, The Filipino Channel/ABS-CBN, Independent Arts & Media, Institute for Coastal Adaptation & Research, Mechanics’ Institute, Midwest Climate Resilience Conference, New England Poetry Club, The Nueva School, The Nurture Nature Center, Old Dominion University, Philippine American Writers and Artists Inc., The Poetry Lighthouse, Poetry Mutual, Poets & Writers, Poets for Science, Poets House, Rhino Poetry, San Francisco Public Library, Skyline College, Soul Bone Literary Festival, South San Francisco Public Library, TeachingBooks, University of California Berkeley, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S. Global Change Research Program, and Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University.
The Dear Human interactive microsite, developed in partnership with Poets for Science & Wick Poetry Center, will be presented at AGU23: American Geophysical Union’s Annual Meeting and at Exploratorium After Dark.
Praise from President Joe Biden
“As we celebrate the rollout of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, let this inspiring collection be a reminder that there is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together.”
Praise from California State Senator and Chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy Josh Becker
“I’m so proud of former San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto, Dr. Luisa A. Igloria and Dr. Jeremy S. Hoffman’s anthology ‘Dear Human (at the Edge of Time)’. Our climate crisis is the foremost issue in our world right now, and while we still have time to save ourselves, that time is waning. The poetry in this book is as complex as our world, but it offers hope for a better tomorrow.”
Praise from Renato Redentor Constantino, Deputy Chair of the Expert Advisory Group of the 58-government Climate Vulnerable Forum “This book reminds us we are in a state of collapse as well as rebirth. It is both lamp and spear, lyric and shield. It is a companion we will need as we navigate the long dark night of the climate crisis and the rubble of human certainties and conceits.”
Praise from Jane Hirshfield
“The DEAR HUMAN anthology is rich, deep, and ultimately heartening… So many voices in this book are new to me—that too is heartening. The informedness of the poems. Their integration of fact and feeling… Rachel Carson wrote about the melting ice caps in the late 1940s. Gary Snyder saw what the oil economy was doing in that decade also. The first Earth Day? Not until 1970. We'd already landed on the moon before people began to take in what was needed here on earth… and then came decades of willful not-doing, self-blinding, consuming. But… we saw. We bore witness. There were steps forward along with steps backward. And now more than ever, at last, the chorus of earth-defenders and earth-embracers grows omnipresent, visible not least in the pages of this book.”
Praise from Dr. Sam Illingworth, Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier University and Chief Executive Editor, Geoscience Communication
“I am inspired by the power of poetry to move us, to challenge us, and to connect us to one another and to the natural world. Dear Human at the Edge of Time is a testament to the vital role that poetry can play in raising awareness of the climate crisis and in spurring us to action.”
Praise from Dr. Edward Maibach, Distinguished University Professor & Director at the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication
“Focusing on climate change—as I have done for nearly two decades—has a terrifying way of accelerating time. Like a quiet walk in the woods, these poems coaxed time to slow down for me, and occasionally stand still. That stillness created space in which to see further and more broadly. I'm grateful to these poets for having spoken so deeply to me, and to time.”
Praise from Cristina Veresan, STEAM Educator and Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow
“I'm heartened that this poetry anthology will accompany the 5th National Climate Assessment, for it beautifully explores what is at stake with both grief and hope. I highly recommend it to all humans! Secondary teachers: consider incorporating it into your science or humanities courses. Discussing these rich poems will enhance your curriculum and allow students to process climate change impacts in a way that supports healthy social-emotional development. Perhaps it may even inspire some student climate change poetry!”
Praise from Claire Wahmanholm, author of Meltwater and winner of the Montreal Prize
“An anthology like this represents just a sliver of people who are deeply invested in this work. For every poet in this anthology—each of whom care desperately about the world and what we are doing to it—there are approximately 2,500,739 people in the United States—some poets, but mostly not—who feel the same way: that we are in serious trouble; that greed has brought us here; that we love the world and think it is worth saving; that we are willing to reimagine our societies in order to do it.”
Praise from Dr. Jessica Whitehead, Joan P. Brock Endowed Executive Director, Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience
“…I’m so impressed by the work of the poets in this anthology, and the concepts they bring you behind Dear Human at the Edge of Time. This work is a unique opportunity to bring feeling through poetry together with the science of the forthcoming Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment, which also, for the first time upon its release in the late fall, will bring visual art into the report. When I was a member of the Sustained National Climate Assessment Federal Advisory Committee in 2016-17, we were charged with thinking about how to make the NCA more engaging, more useful, and more relevant for everyone who calls the United States home. Dear Human at the Edge of Time is an amazing concept from Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto, and Jeremy Hoffman, which answers that charge in the best way possible.”
Also featured or found in:
Arizona State University Library
ASLE: Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
Brisbane Library
Burlingame Public Library
Cleveland Public Library
The Climate Museum
Crowder College
King County Library System
Lawrence Public Library
Library of Congress
Northwestern University
Old Dominion University
The Poetry Lighthouse
Poetry Mutual
Poetry Society of Virginia
Poets House
Prince William Public Libraries
RHINO Poetry
Roger Williams University
San Francisco Public Library
South San Francisco Public Library
SUNY at Buffalo
TeachingBooks
University of Washington Libraries
Waco-McLennan County Library
Washington and Lee University
WorldCat
Zentralbibliothek Zürich
