The River Path
The River's Voice
Common Ground's anthology of mainly twentieth century poetry
published by Green Books in 2000.
Rivers are at the heart of our existence - they shaped our land, positioned our settlements, fed us and led us inland as well as providing us with water and metaphor, power and enchantment.
Yet all around us rivers are battling to recover from an onslaught of de-naturing: lowering of watertables, chemical poisoning, draining of water meadows, destruction of waterloving trees, habitats and wild life, culverting of tributaries, squeezing between concrete. They hit the headlines when something goes wrong - when they flood, become polluted or claim a life.
But we have an enduring relationship with rivers which transcends disasters - they help us tell our stories, convey our histories, hold our dreams. We go to them for contemplation, solace and re - creation.
This anthology is just one way of reminding us of their deep and their everyday importance to us, of their myriad meanings and manifold resonances, and that their fate is intricately intertwined with ours - naturally and culturally.
The publication of The River's Voice forms part of a programme of Common Ground's cultural and environmental work on rivers and running water.
More than 180 poems link old voices - Clare, Donne, Tennyson and Wordsworth - and new, from both sides of the Atlantic including A.R. Ammons, Wendell Berry, Hayden Carruth, Carol Ann Duffy, U.A. Fanthorpe, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Randall Jarrell, Andrew Motion, Adrienne Rich, Charles Tomlinson and William Carlos Williams.
The River's Voice is edited by Angela King & Susan Clifford for Common Ground, with a foreword by Roger Deakin, the third founder director of Common Ground, who is currently receiving plaudits for his book Waterlog, a swimmers journey through Britain published by Chatto and Windus in June 1999.
224 pp 216 x 138 mms. ISBN 1 870098 82 X
The River's Voice is available from bookshops or direct from
Common Ground, Gold Hill House, 21 High Street, Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8JE
at £9.95 plus £2.00 p&p.
[tel - +44 (0) 1747 850820; fax - +44 (0) 1747 850821]
THE RIVER'S VOICE is a companion volume to FIELD DAYS, an anthology of poetry about fields published 1998 by Green Books. A third volume TREES BE COMPANY was re-published in 2000.
For further information please ring Sue Clifford / Angela King
at Common Ground on +44 (0) 1747 850820.
For review copies, please ring John Elford / Paul Rossiter at Green Books on +44 (0) 1803 863260.
Green Books publishes books for a sustainable future. Founded in 1986 by Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence magazine, it is a small independent publishing company producing about thirteen new titles each year on a range of environmental and social issues. Book distribution via Alton Logistics 01626 832225, or direct to non bookstore retailers: Green Books Ltd., Foxhole, Dartington, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EB. (01803 863260).
