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Nature Poetry

How to Write Nature Poetry

Steps to Follow

  1. Start with Stillness 🍃

    Before writing, take a quiet walk or sit beneath a tree—yes, really sit. Listen to leaves gossiping with the wind, the crunch of beetles under bark, or the way sunlight dapples your notebook. Nature poetry begins with reverent stillness.

  2. Tune in with All Your Senses 🌿

    Great nature poets don’t just look—they inhale pine needles, feel the weight of fog, taste the metallic tang of rain. Describe not just what you see, but how the world feels against your skin. Sensory overload is a good thing here.

  3. Unearth the Metaphor 🌱

    Nature is the original philosopher. The dying tree may mirror grief. The stubborn dandelion—resilience. Wendell Berry once found peace in a wood drake. Let the outer world reflect your inner one without forcing it. Let the metaphor rise like morning mist.

  4. Pick Your Voice: Owl or Oak? 🦉🌳

    Decide your perspective. Will you write as a human in awe? As a leaf tumbling downstream? As the moon itself? Mary Oliver often walked beside nature; Emily Dickinson wrote from the soul of a bee. Choose your voice like a tree chooses where to root.

  5. Name the Unnameable Precisely 🌾

    Nature poetry thrives on detail. Don’t just say 'tree'—say 'sycamore.' Not 'bird'—say 'red-winged blackbird.' Learn the local names. Precision makes your world real. Even Bashō knew the difference between one frog’s plop and another’s.

Example

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

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