This Tilting Earth

Winner of the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize 2018 Jane Lovells poems are both beautiful and disturbing. A deep feeling for the natural world is aligned with an acute lyric sensibility, as well as a profound ethical awareness of our responsibility for the planet and the devastation of its landscapes and vulnerable species. With a delicacy and rhythm that is mesmeric, Lovell places each word as a seed with the intent to sow a deeper awareness - so very needed in this time of grave ecological uncertainty. These poems read as a roll-call of loss; of creatures, of species and their landscapes; of our own human innocence degraded through cultural and scientific pursuits that have picked the earth clean of its once-teeming life. With scientific precision, Lovell binds together parcels of the lost, lifts them from the silts of a too- swiftly forgotten history, and gives them voice. Autumn Richardson Jane Lovells poems are crafted with a jewellers precision. They make visceral connections with the wild in a language all of her own. James Roberts