Connecting to nature through poetry and prose
Write Like Issa: A Haiku How-To by David G. Lanoue explores the mindset needed to write haiku like Kobayashi Issa. Lanoue explains, “To Write like Issa means writing tenderly about one’s fellow creatures, human and otherwise.” This book gives us six lessons on how to get there.
Seas the Day: A Year of Sea Swimming Poetry is Rachael Boughton’s first published collection of poetry and prose that she aptly described as “love letters” to the Sea. These poems are as much about Boughton’s connection to the ocean as they are a celebration of life.
The Heart of Haiku is a short book written by Jane Hirshfield in which she investigates the evolution of Matsuo Basho’s writing and poetry. Using Basho’s own words and haiku, Hirschfield demonstrates Basho's impact on the poetic world.
In Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China, David Hinton traces the rivers-and-mountains tradition from its origins in the 5th century C.E. to the Sung Dynasty (13th century). "Fundamentally different from the writing that employs the ‘natural world' as the stage or materials for human concerts, this poetry articulates a profound and spiritual sense of belonging to a wilderness of truly awesome dimensions."
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.
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 