Antlers of Water
Edited by KATHLEEN JAMIE
(CANONGATE, 304 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • Tel 020 7799 4064

For prize-winning poet Kathleen Jamie, noticing “amounts to a political act”. Her collection of contemporary Scottish writing on nature and landscape includes photography, experimental poetry, song – but the contributors all share “attentiveness” to the world we are travelling through, focused observation, distilled into striking images. Their observation, she points out, isn’t passive. What’s more, she argues that by reading, we too are participating. “When we read and write … walk on the beach, listen and notice … we are part of the remedy.”

That’s encouraging. It’s a difficult time to feel empowered about the state of the natural world. Nature isn’t quite the healing goddess she once was. She seems to be taking a grumpy turn.

The best anthologies are like that selection box you get at Christmas – some old favourites, some new additions, and then there’s Montelimar, which is never good in any circumstances, until you age 10 years and discover what you missed. Antlers of Water is a fine selection box.