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@BEZORP I read it when I was in high school (decades ago) and recommended it to my ecology teacher. Do US high schools still have ecology classes, I wonder?

Since I have a poem in this anthology, and a few of my friends have poems in this anthology, I can’t give it an unbiased review. But if you like poetry and you’re on the left politically, I think you’d enjoy this book.

It would be easy to take discouragement from this book that argues for radical hope. It was first published in 2004 and reissued with added material in 2016. Those times were bright compared to today, and the despair we felt back then seems almost quaint. Some of the victories Solnit encourages us to remember have since been taken away, and others, such as gay marriage, are endangered. Some of the groups and movements she praises have dwindled or disappeared. But as Solnit reminds us, nothing is permanent. Even a temporary victory makes a difference, and things can change as suddenly and surprisingly for the better as for the worse. New movements appear, tactics change. “It’s always too soon to go home. And it’s always too soon to calculate effect.”

Part memoir and part “this is how I work(or at least how I think I work),” this book is fascinating and, for someone who creates things, inspiring and useful. I’ll refer repeatedly to Ito’s explanations of how he develops his initial ideas. (The phrase in quotation marks above is a paraphrase, not a direct quote.)