Connecting to nature through poetry and prose
Gazing up into the darkness on a clear winter night, I quickly get lost in my own mind with thoughts about life and the vastness of time. Luckily I have poets like Teasdale, Hughes, Basho, Issa, Buson, and Toshimi to provide me company.
January is typically the coldest time of the year and today we look at the poetry of Helen Hunt Jackson, William Carlos Williams, Basho, Issa, and Shiki as they explore the impact of the winter winds.
Cold midwinter days provided plenty of time for poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Matsuo Basho, and Kobayashi Issa to reflect on the snow and ice and our connection to it.
The forest transforms itself in the winter and to help celebrate the trees' persistence during the winter months we turn to the poets William Carlos Williams, Margaret Widdemer, and Issa for inspiration.
The mini season of Major Snow is marked by a drop in temperature and a noticeable decline in daylight. With this shift, frost is now a common occurrence. As a way to celebrate this season, we will look at how frost is made and then read some poetry by Issa, Buson, Toshimi, and Teasdale.
In the winter woods the sound of a woodpecker resonates through the trees. This drumming or tapping behavior of the woodpeckers makes these birds both noticeable and unique. As a result there are many poems written about them. Today we have poems by Dickinson, Alling, Basho, Issa, and Silverstein.
From Li Bai, to Kobayashi Issa, to Wallace Stevens, poets across time have tried to capture the moon’s mysterious nature into verse. Today we have seven examples of the moon’s presence in the poetic form.
The owl, with its nocturnal lifestyle and distinct appearance has made it the perfect subject for poetry. Today we have poems from Issa, Alan Watts, Emily Dickinson, and many more.
Naturalist Weekly 