Now, when this unwritten history of our relationship with the land is under persistent attack from development, agrochemicals and genetic engineering, poetry raises questions about the real partnership between humankind and nature that fields represent. This anthology brings together the work of more than ninety poets, ancient and modern, including Wendell Berry, John Betjeman, John Burnside, Helen Dunmore, Ivor Gurney, Seamus Heaney, Elizabeth Jennings, John Keats, Alice Oswald, Kathleen Raine and Walt Whitman.

Half of the ancient woodlands present in 1945 have been destroyed, replanted with conifers or cleared for cereal production, roads and building development. The intention of this book is to present evidence of our deep cultural need for trees and woods and to inspire people to take care of them. Trees, and indeed woods, know no distinction between town and country; they are close to everyone. If we are to combat local pollution, make even the slightest impact on global warming, enjoy our surroundings and share them with many other creatures, we need trees: trees here and trees now. If we are to nourish more than our prosaic needs we need their longevity, their beauty, their generosity. Trees stand for nature and culture. We shall stand or fall with them.

This volume comprises 190 poems by 133 poets: old favourites such as Tennysons The Song of the Brook and Wordworths Upon Westminster Bridge are joined by 20th century poetry from both sides of the Atlantic, with writers including A.R. Ammon, Wendell Berry, Carol Ann Duffy, U.A. Fanthorpe, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Andrew Motion, Sylvia Plath and William Carlos Williams. Poets muse on the particularity of rivers, use the river as a metaphor for lifes journey, from spring to the sea of unknowing, and explore the magical qualities of water, its transformations and patterns. Yet in Britain our rivers are still retreating from a post-war onslaught: the lowering of water tables, draining of water meadows, chopping down of trees and destroying wildlife habitats. This book reasserts the timeless importance of rivers to our environment, to the poetic imagination, and indeed to life itself.