Splendid Be the Earth

Award-winning Swedish poet Mats Söderlund explores the changes in his local mountains, along with the grief of losing our natural places – encouraging us to save what's left. Solastalgia is the distress caused by losing our beloved landscapes. How will we mourn the ice? Mats Söderlund first hiked to the Helags massif, Sweden, in 1976, aged eleven. In 2022, he could see the glacier had shrunk. The Nordic region is warming quickly, and Mats shows us how an increase of 3°C looks and feels. Wet snow no longer crunches under shoes … lakes aren’t freezing for long enough … summer meadows are turning yellow. Mats talks to those who depend on the landscape, including reindeer herders and small-scale farmers. He weaves in the perspective of scientists, natural historians, poets and philosophers to understand these new feelings of solastalgia. The losses we face – not just ice caps and species, but also languages and cultures – are happening at a speed that can make us blind to them. By remembering beloved landscapes, we give ourselves space to grieve. Mats opens our eyes and urges us to look at what we’re losing – and to save what’s left while there is still time.