Eco Poetry!

Here is a brief description of eco poetry workshops that I lead -- feel free to adapt it to the needs of Please post your own eco poems from our workshop on Thursday in the comments here if you would like to.  The poems are lovely, and it's great to share these poetic sketches.
your class or group!

‘Ecopoetry’ is a term and a practice introduced around the turn of the millennium and amplified by the publication of works including the first edition of the literary journal Ecopoetics in 2001 (Skinner, 2001-9) and Scott Bryson’s edited volume, Eco poetry: A critical introduction (Bryson, 2002).Ecopoetry may be seen as a subset of ‘nature poetry’, but perhaps according to three overarching characteristics that Bryson identifies: “ecocentrism, a humble appreciation of wilderness, and a scepticism of hyperrationality and its resultant overreliance on technology” (Bryson, 2002 p. 7) – characteristics that are complexified in the same volume by Quetzenbach’s observation of “environment as a fundamental concern linking university and barrio, wilderness and city, feminist and agrarian” (p. 260). Ecopoetry has developed as a practice and poetics grounded in an acknowledgement and valuing of the ecological interdependence of human and more-than-human entities, a decentring of the human, and an attitude of humility, respect and listening.

On our poetry walk, we’ll treat the poems we write as quick sketches: a way of engaging with the moment, the place, our state of awareness as we notice different things and notice them differently. Like a sketch, each poem is made from an immediate impression, a not-too-filtered idea or experience, which may be developed into something else later, or left as a sketch. Our poem sketches may well be left unfinished as we continue on our poetry walk. These particular poems may become favourites or may be discarded at some point. That is not our concern as we write them – we are taking up poetry as a way to be here & now, as a means of noticing.


The poems may rhyme or not. They may take up a form like the sonnet, haiku, limerick or triolet, or be free-form. Do pay attention to the words you choose and those you choose to leave out. Roll the words around in your mouth and give them breath and voice. Poetry is an oral medium, and the words are meant to be spoken, chanted and sung. Try saying them aloud to yourself or a friend (or a tree or a rock…) That’s as good a guide as any to the feel and the rhythm of your poem.

Some starting ideas and prompts to try yourself & possibly use with your students:

• Look very close up at something small.

• Let your eyes range from low to high, or widely along the horizon.

• Let certain colours pop out at you or carry you away with their moods.

• Close your eyes and give attention to your other senses: touch, hearing, smell, taste.

• Choose something that draws you to it. Give your close attention to it. Imagine it were you and you it. Empathize with it, and imagine being it for a few moments.

• Find two or three things that you react to in very different ways. Compare your interactions and emotions with these things.

•Tell a true or imagined story that this place reminds you of.

• Move in ways that are not everyday for you – hop, climb, crawl, spin, stretch, lean, roll, squat down. Use your voice in unaccustomed ways – hum, growl, yell, sing. You can do these quietly or loudly. As these recall other experiences, perhaps from childhood, notice the emotions and perceptions they bring with them.

• Write a letter to someone, or something (the soil? A Brussels sprout?), or something intangible (the month of January?)

• Write a list, or an impossible recipe, or a telegram (where each word costs money!), or an email, or a tweet, or a math word problem, or…

• Start by choosing some specially intriguing words, perhaps delicious, luscious words, or ugly, bad-tasting ones, or shimmering words, or brutal words, or sharp words, or… Start with just these words and fill in a line of poetry. Fill in the poem around this line, which I you might repeat.

• Start with an overheard phrase of conversation & build the poem around that.