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Book Review – Summer: An anthology for the seasons
“Summer: An anthology for the seasons”, edited by Melissa Harrison is a book which captures the wonders of summer through not only the magic of poetry, but also through the stories of those who are its greatest admirers.
Summer isn’t just compiled of any old nugatory poetry or stories, Summer is compiled of only the finest and most passionate poetry and extracts from birding books and birders themselves which span across 800 years from the work of classic poets such as Charles Dickens and William Morris to the more modern work of today’s poets and wildlife enthusiasts such Alexandre Pearce and Lucy McRobert. This book of ebullience, aspiration and remembrance paints the picture of what summer is all about, rushing back into the arms of Mother Nature and reconnecting with her magical summer wonders after months of hibernation.
After thoroughly delighting myself after reading over the 205 pages of Summer, I had found that my body had been filled with an uncontrollable desire to investigate how summer taking place around me. The sheer creativity and passion which has gone into crafting these spellbinding poems and accounts is to be something to be proud of; it’s down to that which allows for reader to feel at one with nature and allows them to develop a passion which they might not have already had.
The way in which the poems and stories of old & new combine and complement each other is like nothing I’ve ever set my eyes upon before, they work in perfect harmony to both show that despite there being up to 800 years between some of the work, Summer is still a time of plenty, peace, joy and nature. In the 13th century poem “Summer Is Icumen In”, and the 1903 extract from “Hampshire Days”, you can see how that despite being hundreds of years apart in the making, the summer calling of the Cuckoo still plays a vital role in bringing on the summer and letting you know that it’s back once more. A common theme in Summer is that a majority of the poems and stories highlight the fact that without the love calling melodies our many summer migrants such Cuckoo and Nightingale, summer just wouldn’t be the same. For many summer is all about the birds of Britain finding their loved ones in no way more romantic than taking centre stage and filling the air with love, passion and devotion. For many of us if all that were to disappear and the heathlands and woodlands of the British Isles were to fall into a void of silent, then summer would be no more as there’d be no love.
A part of Summer which touched me deeply right down to my heart was the introduction by Melissa Harrison. At the beginning of the introduction Melissa talks about the traditional things which the general population would do on a typical summer’s day, “days at the beach, or picnics in parks and gardens; long, fair-weather country walks”, stuff which I usually do when I’m out with my non-wildlife enthusiastic family; but Melissa then goes on and gives the statement that “We pine for the six solid weeks of sunshine we believe we always had as a child. But in wanting to recapture those days we risk missing the days we still have – because what is that wish but a wish to be a child again, loosed from school, loosed from the house, and barefoot on the grass?”, for me personally this statement means a great deal as I’m now at an age where I’m looking back at my childhood and starting to want to go back and to revert to those summers I had when I was a child, those are summers I want so much to relive and recapture those moments in which I full of nothing more than joy; but as Melissa has rightly pointed out, “But in wanting to recapture those days we risk missing the days we still have”, it reminds us all who are in that type of mind frame not to remain at a standstill and try and reverse in our pursuit to find joy in summer, but instead to accelerate onwards and upwards to create new moments and new memories to which we can then look back on and tell the future generations that’s what we did.
Summer has no flaws, it is a book of sheer brilliance with the magic to inspire not only the younger generations but also the older ones to get out from there enjoy the summer; weather its running through a wild meadow, walking in a woods or simply going out in your garden and enjoying the weather. Summer is a book which should be treasured by all and it’s of great gratitude to those with the minds cable of writing such mind blows pieces of poetry and stories that Summer is the book it is.