Nature's Words: Events and Reviews
Performing ecopoetry at Resurgence cross-party climate conference, London, Nov' 07
Click here for You Tube video link
Reviews
Featured in The Weekend Magazine, The Daily Mail, 4/11/06
On Helen Moore's Changing Nature: Eco-Notes of a Digital Woman by Mark Lynas, author of High Tide: How Climate Crisis is Engulfing Our Planet
"The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady updated for the modern era of climate change, Helen Moore's wonderful book combines stunning photos with engaging poetry and prose to give an intimate feel for the state of nature in Britain today. More than anything this book shows how important it is that we love and care for our local - as well as the global - environment."
The
Nature of My Heart: Poems and Eco Poems
by Helen Moore
Review by Lesley Straughton, Lapidus Magazine, Issue 9, Winter/Spring
2005
"The appearance of this book is a delight - 5 pamphlets, enticing cover photographs and a bead hand sewn into each binding. These are tucked inside an exquisite folder tied with a straw bow. A refreshing change from the mass-produced books we now expect.
The collection's title is from the first poem in the pamphlet 8 Eco-Poems. A pivotal poem, examining her own heart, the poet finds 'a world reflected, but always shifting'. It is an appropriate collection-title as nature is an ever-present, interactive element in poems of personal relationships, while the focus of the poet's love in other poems is the environment itself.
Within
these pamphlets there are various moods and tones. Sometimes we see humour,
as in 'On Loving a Green Man', other times a more serious note, as in
'Larsen Trap'. There is a strong sense of rhyme threaded throughout the
collection. All the poems are accessible, in a first person narrative
style, and they open up a vividly described environment, simultaneously
beautiful and heavily polluted. Here is a collection by a poet of conviction
where many of the poems turn on a concern for a deep green approach to
modern life."
Resurgence Summer Camp, July '05, Photo: John Collins
Extract
from The Organic Way, issue 179, Spring 2005
'The Future of Food: Positive Action towards Good Food for All'
On the 22 January,
in conjunction with Resurgence Magazine, HDRA helped to organise
an event in London on 'The Future of Food'. Distinguished speakers from
around the world discussed the impact of the current food system on small
farmers, the environment, and human health. Melissa Harvey reports...
'The Poetry of Food'
The seminar was opened and concluded by Helen Moore, 8th Bard of Bath,
who beautifully captured the overall impression with this verse from 'Giant
Steps of Mankind':
And so if - as I do - you yearn
to live lightly on this lovely planet Earth,
trust you must in a sea-change our choices
like drops on stone
are capable of making...
truly hard though it seems at times,
when to the Moon most seem to gaze,
pressing on our world gigantic steps
as Progress blindly wreaks its worst.
New
Internationalist 371 September 2004
Living Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Stories and Poems
Volume 1, Articles 1-10
edited by Marisa Antonaya
(Flame Books, ISBN 0 9545945 3 3)
This anthology, as the title says, puts together a collection of fiction
from around the world on the broad theme of ‘human rights’
as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of 10 December 1948. In
what is presumably the first volume of a trilogy – Living Rights
deals with the first 10 of the Declaration’s 30 articles –
a dozen authors respond creatively to the questions of equality and freedom.
Of course, the world being as it is, the focus in these pieces is often
on repression and the denial of rights. As Marisa Antonaya says in her
thoughtful introduction: ‘We state that the pen is mightier than
the sword, and then notice the blade pressed against the writer’s
neck.’ Operating as shouts of outrage are such pieces as ‘Dream
Robbers’ – Freda Churches’ poem about compulsory medication
– and Nathan Witcher’s excellent ‘Break Away Country’
dealing with Australia’s inhuman treatment of asylum seekers.
But there is celebration as well as anger and several writers, far from
being weighed down by their philosophical brief, have adroitly melded
the intimate moment with the global development. Outstanding is
Helen Moore’s ‘The Story-Makers’ which tackles, with
the lightest of touches, the weighty issue of the economic and cultural
legacy of colonialism.
Each story and poem is, in its own way, a testament to our capacity to
endure, to bear witness and to prevail. Living Rights is a lively contribution
to the ongoing struggle to transform human rights from words on a page
to the flesh and blood of everyday life.
http://www.newint.org/columns/media/books/2004/09/01/living-rights/
Comments made by Individuals
“Thank you for coming to our writers group. We enjoyed it and I think it made a few people look at poetry in a different light. I certainly found it inspiring and stimulating for my imagination!”
Sue Bacon, Warminster Writers' Circle, June '08
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"Helen Moore is an amazing poet and this sort of stuff keeps our fires burning, reignites, smoulders and lights fuses where they need to be lit!"
Suzy Edwards, London, June '07
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"Your book (Changing Nature) is very lovely. Also totally thought provoking. Thanks so much for creating it Helen. Sincere regards..."
Sandy Aubrey, Wiltshire, Nov '06
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"What a thought-provoking work! (Changing Nature) It's left me awe-struck at your knowledge of plants and your empathy with the whole world of nature, great and small. It's made me aware of how blindly I pass it all by – I must be missing so much – and I am determined to take more notice in future and to stop taking it all for granted as a sort of unimportant backdrop to my life. Thank you for pulling me up short..."
Judith Bramall, Woking, Oct '06
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"Your poems fall into my life as gifts, as loving reminders to come home."
Anna Adhemar, Denmark, Oct '06
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"Helen Moore is a writer and poet, often combining humour with her love of nature. Her book 'Changing Nature, Eco-notes of a Digital Woman' is a celebration of the 'Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady' 100 years on. It allows the voice of nature to speak for itself about global warming."
Elaine Brook, Gaia Co-operative, Herefordshire, June '06
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"I really enjoyed your poems at the Resurgence sustainable food meeting…. I have a collection of poetry on my bookshelf but it has occurred to me recently that most of these poets, classic as they are, are dead! It was a joy to hear some living poetry of such a high quality."
Richy Smith,
London, Jan ‘05
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".......the depth of feeling that occurs when you articulate your poems."
Cal, London,
Jan ‘05
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"Thank you for making such an inspiring and entertaining contribution to the summer camp. Your poetry has real heart in it and you perform it with heart too. I hope you will come again next year."
Satish Kumar,
Editor of Resurgence Magazine, August ‘04
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