Writing About Nature Without Writing a Nature Poem
Nature is the second most written-about subject in poetry and the second most clichéd. A judge on the postcard trap, the three moves that turn a nature poem into a real one, and the question that tells you if the poem is about the nature or about you.
Nature is the second most written-about subject in poetry, after love, and it is the second most clichéd. Every contest pile has a stack of nature poems that describe the view: the mountain, the river, the forest, the sea. The poem is a postcard, and the postcard is the thing that every other poem in the pile is also about.
The nature poem that works is not about the nature. It is about the person who is in it.
The postcard trap
The postcard nature poem is the one that tells you what the nature looks like. The colours, the light, the sound, the scale. It is accurate and it is flat, because the nature is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader can see for themselves.
A poem about nature should not describe the nature. It should describe what the nature does to the person who is in it.
The three moves that turn a nature poem into a real one
Move one: put a person in it. The nature poem that works has a person in it, a walker, a watcher, a self. The nature is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the nature, not the nature itself.
Move two: give the nature a job. The nature should be doing something, blocking a path, holding a memory, changing the light. If the nature is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something, it is a subject.
Move three: let the nature change you. The best nature poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the nature is the thing that changed them. The nature is the agent; the poem is the change.
The question that decides
Here is the question I ask when I am judging a nature poem: is this poem about the nature, or is it about the person in the nature? If the answer is the nature, it is a postcard. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.
The postcard poem says 'this is what I saw'. The real nature poem says 'this is what happened to me here'. The difference is the difference between a postcard and a life.
A worked example
Bad: 'The forest was dark and the trees were tall and the light came through the canopy in shafts.' The forest is the subject; the speaker is absent.
Better: 'I went into the forest to be alone and the forest would not let me.' The forest is the agent; the speaker is the person who is changed by it. The poem is about the person who went into the forest and came out different, not the forest itself.
Where it goes wrong
The trap is the poem that is a love letter to the nature. The love letter is not a poem; it is a thank-you note. The poem is the thing that the nature did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.
If you want to see a nature poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on the outdoors and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The nature is the stage. The person is the play.
Keep reading
For the craft side, the contest-tips module covers the deeper method. The past winners is the page to read next, and the current window is where the work goes when it is done.
By Writory Editorial, for Writory.
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