Connecting to nature through poetry and prose
Tressa Mancini is a photographer from Montana. She shares pictures of the Rocky Mountains and rural landscapes that demonstrate her connection to the land. In today’s interview, we talk with Tressa about her work and the awe that can be found in nature.
The favorite nature books of 2021 as identified by our readers.
The porch is this amazing human creation that allows us to be outside, yet maintain the safety of the indoors. Charlie Hailey, in a recent essay printed in Orion Magazine, provides us with an exploration into how the porch can be a doorway between us and the natural world.
The reasons for wanting to pass down knowledge can be various, but what remains the same is the underlying hope that others can benefit from your experiences. Today we have two books from accomplished authors that contribute to creating a sense of wonder in the natural world.
Emily Dickinson wrote: “Had Nature an Apostate-/ That Mushroom -it is Him!”. These lines acknowledge that mushrooms do not follow any of the traditional laws of nature. Dickinson is telling us, in her own poetic fashion, that mushrooms are a breed unto themselves. Today we have poems by Dickinson, Quinones, Sze, and Rohrer, that investigate the fascinating fungal kingdom.
Pastoral poetry focuses on an idealized notion of the rural landscape. This tradition started with Hesiod and we can still find traces of it in the work of Wendell Berry and Dylan Thomas.
At the end of summer, sunflowers are noticeable parts of the landscape. Poets William Blake and Kenneth W. Porter have both written about the sunflower. However, their poems feel very different.
Three resources that explore the challenges and benefits of reading and writing poetry,. These sources also offer insight into the ways we can learn and grow with poetry.
Gardens can provide us with food for our bodies and souls. Poets can help us see that connection in a new way. In today's post we have three poems that look at gardening featuring poets Beatrix Potter, Edgar Guest, and Karina Borowicz.
The 1960s brought an awareness of an emerging environmental crisis. This crisis captured the attention of poets and led to the creation of ecopoetry. Ecopoetry can then be separated into three large categories: nature poetry, environmental poetry, and ecological poetry.
The 72 seasons ask us to slow down. If we think about everything in micro-seasons, the beauty of everyday life opens up. Each block of time brings its own magic, and likewise, its own poetry to the world.
Visualizing Nature: Essays on Truth, Spirit, and Philosophy, is edited by Stuart Kestenbaum. In this book, Kestenbaum asked the essayist “How does nature speak to you? And how do you listen to nature?’ Each essayist responded in their own way harnessing their personal experience and expertise to share stories about forests, deserts, coral reefs, and shorelines.
Naturalist Weekly 