Annie is a much-loved member of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival team and her Book Launch was hosted by them. Presented by Howard Timms. Annie’s collection has been described by Ankh Spice as ‘a clarion call to find the edges we have forgotten’, and by Ben Ray as ‘a haunting love letter to the natural world’.
It was a pleasure listening to all the poems, a delight to watch her excitement as Guest Readers shared some of their own poetry and read poems picked from her first collection. It is always exciting to hear your words coming from the mouth of another. Something magical about that process. I was touched when several readers shared poems written especially for Annie or inspired by poems in this collection. Annie’s Special Guests were Ben Ray, Anna Saunders, Zoe Brooks and Ankh Spice. In addition to these four powerful poets, Annie had asked other members of the poetry community to read a poem from the collection.
It was an honour to be there, to listen, to watch, to see. The witness and kinship. Annie’s poems bring nature in until it becomes us (as it should be, as it is). We are, after all part of it, we are it, it is us. As more people (through Lockdown Nature) are realising and we’re all bearing witness to the proof of our ecological impact.
About the Book
Nature at a Cost is a collection of poems essentially focusing on the interaction between humans and the environment. Poet Annie Ellis explores the impact that our way of life is having on other species that share our planet, offering a unique perspective on the disturbing situation we are currently creating. Her words send a powerful message to all of us to protect rather than exploit the natural world, to bring harmony and balance for a better future.
Extracts from the testimonials for Nature at a Cost
A collection of vivid and beautifully observed poems by a writer who loves nature in all its manifestations – from the jack-of-all-trades to the king of the pack, all the creatures in this charming collection are depicted with awe and delight.
Anna Saunders, CEO of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival and poet
A raw, real and honest update on the Romantics’ odes to the natural world, Nature at a Cost is an engrossing and challenging collection which flows from the page as naturally as the rivers and forests it describes – a haunting love letter to the natural world, which stays with the reader long after the final stanza. Sometimes unsettling and uncomfortable in its questioning of our self-centred perception of the world, Ellis is not afraid to explore the nature’s raw and often violent mechanics: seals twist in water to escape ‘a cave of daggers’, millions of ladybirds bury a small town, and the seasons turn unstoppably in ‘pompoms of autumn fizz’. Ellis is disarmingly honest and open about her own position in this wildness, which she finds reflected inside herself: ‘I feel the pain of solitude, / with the twist of time coming round.’ Yet throughout this collection, Ellis’ writing consistently holds a deep love and respect for nature and its inhabitants. This is twinned with a keen and subtle eye for observation: goats ‘wander like lost pebbles’, whilst ducks swim in an ‘army of ripples’. As the collection’s title suggests, there is an underlying tension between the human and wild here: but Ellis masterfully negotiates this distance, using poetry as the bridge to carry us from the familiar into the wilderness. In the final poem, a tree speaks of this innate connection: ‘find me in the pencil / you are holding.’ If you are looking for this entry point into the wilds, look no further than Nature at a Cost.
Ben Ray
‘Nature at a Cost’ beckons you to step beyond your comfortable human skin and allow your boundaries to be repainted in a wilder shape. Ellis’s poetic gift is for suspending time on the wing, on the hoof, the claw, or the branch – she offers vivid moment after moment as a series of natural Attenborough-esque observations, still moving as we watch – or better still as we step in with the poet to channel our consciousness into her global family of flora and fauna, weather and wile. In this time of disconnection from the deep and intimate living our own animal experience could, and should, offer us, this collection is a clarion call to find the edges we have forgotten, and to redefine what we notice and protect as valuable.
‘Because of you I want to keep living’ realises Ellis in ‘Wolf’, and it is truly that simple. We are in the quietly clamouring presence of every reason to persist in symbiosis, not at odds, and every beast captured by this poet’s keen and tender lens shows us how – from revelling ladybug to nursing doe to goats on the edge. This collection is, in every sense, a vital one.
Ankh Spice, Co-Editor of Ice Floe Press.
– Source Cheltenham Poetry Festival
You can order a copy of Annie’s collection here.
Congratulations to Annie Ellis.
The poets were introduced by Jennie Farley (another IDP poet) and I was held captive by stories in poems for the next hour.
awritersfountain 