Writer's Corner: Poetry & Fiction

Editor: Katie Nealon

ESSAY: Nature Poet or Activist ?

We recently welcomed a new year, decade and day, but while a clean slate and a chance for change seem to be at hand, a dirty past lingers behind us which cannot be swept under the rug. Although we may not be able see it, our rising oceans are creating new coasts on our continents, rare and beautiful animal species are disappearing, and the sky continues to darken with smog in industrious areas. The shifts and changes in our current ecological situation have and will continue to effect the way humans live their lives throughout the rest of the 21st Century. For poets and writers everywhere, our changing situation is an especially interesting one. While the ability to write lies within ourselves, most often it is from the outdoors that we draw our inspiration. Focusing primarily on the wilderness and natural state of the world, nature poetry has been an essential and important factor in the literary art since its origins.

Some of the best nature poetry known to man was written well over 3,000 years ago, in the serenity of ancient China. Some of the best nature poetry known to man is still being written today, but from within a completely different context.

While it is true that Earth's climate has been fluctuating greatly over the last 4.6 billion years, never, before now, have we seen a man-made shift such as the one currently approaching. The industrial revolution that took place 150 years ago has left a mark on the earth that will forever change the way our ecosystem operates, and consequently, the way humans, especially writers, react to and engage with what natural land that is left.

In most cultures' historical nature poetry we see a disconnect between the wilderness and civilization, and the belief that innocence and simplicity can be found in the countryside, rather than in civilized, court life. Right now in 2010AD, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape our civilizations and find a countryside to retreat to. Recently in California, a bill was proposed to stop funding and shut down more than one hundred state parks, some of the last bits of indigenous wilderness on the North American West Coast. Not only do humans need to consider the life-altering changes that will come to the natural world with climate change, we must also worry about whether there will be enough funding to conserve what wilderness is left.

Catherine Owen of Suite101.com says, "In this time of ecological crisis, poetry speaks to the need to be aware of the other, to conserve resources and to fight back against globalization's takeovers of other cultures' languages, neighborhoods and ecosystems".

But how?

With these new perspectives of the earth's evolution and the way in which humans are responsible for recent change, I am personally wondering how writers will continue in the tradition of nature poetry. My initial reaction is one of an activist. I see earth fleeting from beneath my feet and want to fight for it with my words, but am always brought back to a quote of Robert Hass, that states "politics is not the area where poetry is likely to do what it does best" (Guernica Magazine).

In an interview with Guernica, an online magazine of politics and art, Hass explains how he eventually explored politics in his writing during the '60s, '70s and '80s: "The quote that we all had in our minds was Yeats: 'Poetry is a man arguing with himself; rhetoric is a man arguing with others.' If you were making poetry out of convictions—trying to convince other people—you were in the territory of rhetoric, and that wasn’t the territory of poetry. I think that’s pretty smart. I think that it doesn’t need to be altogether true, but that was my starting place" (Guernica). As a writer, Hass possesses the ability to blend history and politics into his emotions and surroundings, such as in "Palo Alto: The Marshes" (Hass, Feild Guide). But for those of us who have not been deemed a national poet laureate, it may take some energy to prevent our Nature poems from being confused with Activism. It will be interesting to see how the wilderness is approached as it continues to transform and, in some areas, literally disappear.

LINKS/BIBLIO : Guernica Magazine

Global Warming Timeline:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/timeline/timeline.html
Catherine Owen on Suite101.com:
http://canadian-poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/four_canadian_ecopoets
Guernica Interview with Robert Hass:
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/429/the_consequences_an_interview/

Robert Hass Biography - Hass Poem: The Marshes

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Writer's Corner: Poetry & Fiction

Editor: Katie Nealon

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