5 new books on climate and poetry.

What can we learn about the past from our mistakes to avoid environmental disasters of today and tomorrow? This is a question that requires a lot of thought. Massachusetts Maritime AcademyProfessor asks in her highly acclaimed recent book.

These topics are different from the ones in the other books in this batch. There is a nostalgic fictional view back at small-town Cape crime solving; a woman searching for her birth mother and the unusual conclusion of a romance; poems on Cape Cod and a women’s life; an anthology that includes poetry and art that gives creators’ perspectives.

These books are written by local writers.

“Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis,” by Samantha L. Montano; 2021, Park Row Books

This book is by Montano (assistant professor in the Energy Management Department). Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Buzzards Bay, is described as “part memoir, part expert analysis,” offering a cautionary narrative on the environmental disasters of today and those looming in the future in large part due to climate change and the disruption of ecosystems. Montano explains the emergency management perspective of some of the nation’s worst disasters — including the COVID-19 pandemic — and looks at lapses in prevention and preparedness in the past. “Disasterology” was named one of the best books of 2021 by USA Today and National Public Radio’s “Science Friday.” Earlier this year, Montano was a keynote speaker at the MIT Water Summit, which involves water management and ways coastal communities can become more resilient.

More ideasSpring reading: History and fantasy among 5 new Cape Cod authors’ books

“A Brief Affair,” by Dale Foley; 2022, Page Publishing Inc.

Foley, a Falmouth resident and author of this memoir, is her first. She tells the story of how she met her birth mother. It’s one she considers remarkable, and includes being in a small New England church in 2017 to witness the marriage of birth mother — then in her mid-80s — to a man whose heart she had broken 62 years before, when she became pregnant with another man’s child. Foley was adopted as an infant and raised in what she describes as “a warm, caring atmosphere by a loving family,” though she made many discoveries about herself and the families when she and her birth mother reunited.

“Broadsided Press – Fifteen Years Of Poetic and Artistic Collaboration 2005-2020” edited by Elizabeth Bradfield and Alexandra Teague; 2022 Provincetown Arts Press

Based in Truro Broadsided Press was founded by Elizabeth Bradfield, a Truro poet with four books who teaches at Brandeis University , as a way, according to Provincetown Arts Press, “to bring free, accessible poetry and art to the public, foster creative collaboration among artists and writers, and publish digital versions of the resulting broadsides for anyone to view, download, print, and post (both online and in print form).” Over the years, there were more than 300 broadsides created by contemporary artists and poets, many of them Cape-based, many nationally known. This anthology collects 50 in book form for the first time, along with artist/writer Q&As and photographs. The anthology is aimed at celebrating “the power and synergy of poetry and art in public spaces,” with a goal of inspiring people to bring poetry and art to their communities. Jericho Brown and Douglas Culhane are featured writers. Jill Ozier, DanezSmith, Joan Naviyuk Kane Joan Gian Pham, Ilya Kaminsky, and Danez Smith are also featured.

This month’s new:Lauren Wolk, Cape Cod author, launches sequel to her book ‘Wolf Hollow.

“Winter at a Summer House,” by Mary Beth Hines (2021, Kelsay Books)

Many of the poems in this first collection by Hines are set on the Cape, fueled by the Reading resident’s past time living in Yarmouth and many visits to the parents who called Cape home for decades. In fact, the book is dedicated to her parents. Titles include “Truth or Dare On the Bass River Bridge,” “Marconi Beach,” “Scargo Tower in December” and the title poem about a house on the Cape. But there are also more universal themes like “The Wedding Dance” and “First Love.” Much of her imagery invokes the sea and people near it and others explore various times in a woman’s life and everyday experience. There are 49 poems total, many of them previously published in different versions in various literary journals. 

Just launched:‘Summer Love’: 7 questions for Nantucket author Nancy Thayer about her new beach read

“Hurricanes and Blaises and Other Stories,” by Mark Aitchison (2021, independently published) 

This fifth story collection by Aitchison, who lives in Orleans, is set in that town in the 1950s and 1960s, featuring a well-intentioned police chief named Joe Mayo and his daughter Nancy, who investigate and solve a variety of odd cases — with help from retired veterinarian, mentor and part-time medical examiner Doc Sanders. The issues that led to the crimes are guns in schools and coming of age, the opioid crisis, child kidnappings as well as green politics and sharks. “They are stories set in the past, but with meaning in the present,” Aitchison says, and notes on his book that the Mayo stories are “lessons in love, expressing a wish for cooperation and companionship between the generations,” set in an “(admittedly) idealized, though not inconceivable, world that this writer, for one, would like to return to.” The book includes a photo of the real-life Orleans police chief of the era, Chet Landers, and his daughter Carole, plus has a cover photo of the 1946 Chevrolet Fleetmaster police car often seen around Orleans at parades and other events.