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I want to buy a print copy of this book just so I can hug it. Not just because it manages to do something new and exciting within the currently popular genre of myth retellings (if I see one more Hades-Persephone grumpy-sunshine romance I'm gonna scream), but also because it manages to be extremely, absolutely lovable. For the first time in my life I cared about Herakles, who is portrayed not as the usual hypermasculine macho warrior hero, but rather a kind, gentle, somewhat naive, tragic character. A tragic himbo, if you will. Which fits this myth well, because people tend to skip over the fact of WHY he had to do the labors to begin with. John Wiswell took that starting point of trauma and tragedy, and ran with it. On top of this, he did it marvelously. The book is well written. Funny when it needs to be, but also shows a deep knowledge and understanding of myth (and puns). There were many small details sprinkled throughout, references to other myths, which delighted me. Sometimes I could see the author playing with the expectations of the reader versed in myth (during the second half of the book, knowing how Herakles' story ends originally, I was definitely stressed). The worldbuilding was also delightfully creative, from the way the Hydra's mind worked all the way to how Herakles' own powers worked, or how Olympus functioned. Some people complained about the modern language in the narration, but I liked it. And no, it wasn't simple at all. Many parts, turns of phrases were gorgeously eloquent. The story started out light and funny, and I almost forgot where we were headed... and then we slammed into the rollercoaster ride that made me cry and laugh through the rest of the book, and warmed my heart all the way. I especially enjoyed that the book has a split p.o.v. between Herakles and Hera. And the author did just as well with her as he did with him. While keeping the usual tropes about Hera's wrath and jealousy, the story also maanaged to make her complex and deeply human (for a goddess). Again, for the first time, I grew to like her. And all this within a myth where she has always famously been a horrible villain. That's good writing, people. That's empathy. I also liked that the story, while heartwarming and likable, did not slide into all-rosy kitsch or gave easy solutions to anything. There is no ending with a bow. But still, there is an ending that was deeply satisfying. I am going to have a long book hangover after this. This. This is how you retell mythology.

(ARC copy) I was fascinated by this collection for several reasons. One is that it introduced me to a whole lot of poets (from the past 50 years) I have not known before. I was enjoying the sense of recognition with those I knew, and the excitement of discovery for those I want to read more from now. Obviously the goal of the collection was to introduce readers to nature poetry written by global majority poets - but through this lens, it also challenges what qualifies as "nature poetry" and even what qualifies as "nature." The poems had a wide range of styles, forms, and topics; and themes woven through such as identity, immigration, climate crisis, colonialism, etc. There were several that deeply touched me and invited longer contemplation. Others knowingly challenged the reader with text that was disjointed, multilingual, written in dialect, or spliced into other texts (the latter one, Karen McCarthy Woolf's "Horse Chestnut I" was one of my favorites in the book). It would sound like a cliché to say it is a diverse collection, but I don't only mean it by the ethnic identities of the poets. I love reading nature poetry, but I have often felt that some collections I came across presented a very pretty, "poetic", inspiring image of nature. The nature represented in these poems is different. Viscerally connected to humans in all ways good and bad, messy, fascinating, ever-present, meaningful, metaphorical, mythical, personal. It was refreshing to venture beyond admiration into emotional and artistic complexity.