Diaspora Writers Lead New Movement of Nature Poetry

A new movement of nature poetry is emerging from black and brown communities in the UK, challenging the traditional canon of the genre against the backdrop of the climate and biodiversity crisis. The Guardian reported that an anthology, inspired by the question 'Where are our black and Asian nature writers?', has boosted interest in a field long dominated by a narrow, often pastoral, vision of the natural world.

The movement's co-founder, poet Mona Arshi, told the Guardian that the work responds to a sense of being 'in the inferno' — a phrase that captures both the urgency of ecological breakdown and the historical exclusion of diaspora voices from nature writing. The anthology gathers poets who reframe landscape, memory and belonging, offering a counterpoint to the Romantic and Georgian traditions that have shaped the genre in Britain and beyond.

For Italian readers, the development lands at a moment when the country's own literary culture is grappling with questions of who gets to write about the land, the sea and the climate. Italy's nature writing has often been tied to a nostalgic, regionalist idiom, but the diaspora-led movement suggests a more urgent, less settled register — one that may find echoes in the work of Italian writers of African and Asian descent.