Category: ENV 334

On Nature Writing

The first text that especially struck me was Ann Zwinger’s A Rinse in the River. As I wrote in my journal, “Zwinger focuses more on the human history within nature,” and I appreciated the sense of intimacy she incorporated in her work. What I learned about nature writing from this short essay is that it can remind us of the past while grounding us in the present through natural imagery and description. Another text I liked was Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry. I wrote that I appreciated the “critique of modern society and our inclination to want everything at our fingertips,” which I felt was an integral part of agrarianism. From this poem, I learned that nature poetry doesn’t have to consist of the most beautiful, imagery-filled lines to be considered in this category. The third and final text that stood out to me was Ursula LeGuin’s The Wife’s Story because I felt like it was a really unique twist on a classic tale. I think what I learned from this piece was that the meaning a reader is supposed to gain from nature writing doesn’t have to be obvious and that sometimes you have to work to discover what the author really wants you to take away.

The first important insight I had was from the journal associated with Simard, Svensson, and Kimmerer when I realized that I tend to engage with the natural world through memory and my senses. I noted that while memory allows me to connect better with the environment, my senses help me to be more present. Another significant insight I had occurred in a recursive entry after reading Wendell Berry. His work made me think about “how disconnected people are from the food we eat and the land that grows it.” I felt like, after this, I became much more aware of what I was eating in the sense that I wasn’t mindlessly putting food in my body without recognizing where it came from. A final insight I had was in regards to nature films, and I wrote that “filmmaker[s] can explore more intense and in-depth themes because there isn’t as much emphasis on figurative language.” While I don’t necessarily agree with how I worded it, I would say the sentiment still stands. If I were to rethink this reflection on nature films, I would probably say that the intense themes you can explore through text can be enhanced using film.

Overall, I feel like what we’ve done over the semester has shown me how many different types of nature writing exist, and it especially opened my eyes to genres that don’t rely only on text. I think more deeply about nature writing, and I’ve noticed that I try to distinguish different lenses of thought outside of this class. I think nature writing helps us do a number of things, but connecting with a world we’ve become disconnected from is a big one. It also teaches us about things we may never have known and thought about previously. I think nature writing makes nature more accessible, and that’s really important if we are hoping to achieve social equity.

On Myself as a Nature Writer

I think the biggest theme I’ve explored this semester through my writing is the overall human connection with nature as a way to learn about yourself. In my CNF piece, I wrote about my connection with the woods and how important it is to me. For my poem, I went a bit more abstract, but it was all about nature helping to relieve the monotony that people quite often fall into. Finally, for my fiction piece, the story is about a man who becomes one with nature, not only because that’s his desire but also because he has to in order to survive. Family was also an important theme, at least in my long-form writings. My fiction piece was directly about my ancestors, but even in my CNF essay, I speak of the woods as if they’re part of my family.

I’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer. I prefer writing CNF and fiction over poetry because I can get more detailed, but I also realized I like keeping my writing on the shorter side. I find that it’s more impactful at times to say less. I also reaffirmed what I’ve realized in the past that my writing is stronger when I have a personal connection with the subject matter. Something that surprised me was how much I liked fiction writing. It’s something that’s always intimidated me because I read novels and couldn’t understand how someone was able to come up with totally imagined plot lines and characters. Doing it myself on a smaller scale made me realize I could be a fiction writer, I just needed to find the right subgenre of fiction to be able to succeed.

That being said, I’m so proud of “Otho’s Wilderness.” I think it’s one of the first works of fiction I’ve ever written that I actually like and isn’t cliche. My favorite line from the entire piece is “Gettin’ lost in your thoughts can be deadly out here, and with everyone startin’ to wake up, I have no intention of pissin’ off a bull moose or wolf pack because I wasn’t payin’ attention to where I was goin’.” I felt like I was able to depict my relative fairly accurately despite never meeting him, and based on the feedback I received, it said a lot about this man’s character. This piece really makes me want to write an entire book about the adventures of Otho, and I feel like I could definitely do it now after hearing the praise from my classmates.

As a nature writer, I can definitely see myself continuing on in the creative nonfiction and fiction genres. I want to keep writing about how nature plays a role in our lives because I think we forget that sometimes. Our lives get stressful and we don’t pay attention to the natural world, but I hope my writing can remind people of its beauty and necessity.

First Thoughts

These texts seem pretty similar to how others approach climate change. I’ve noticed that there tend to be two categories of climate change writing: those that glaze over the problem while being abundantly hopeful and those that present climate change in a way that is nihilistic and depressing. Each of our readings seems to fit into one of those categories for me. The texts that resonate with me have more of a combination approach to the subject with the author stating directly what is going to happen if we don’t do something about climate change but listing some possible solutions as well.

I think there are a few audiences for writing about climate change. There’s one audience that is trying to learn about the climate crisis and another that is already aware and looking for signs of hope that we’ll be able to overcome it. I think there is overlap too, because people who have a basic knowledge of this subject may also want to know if there is any way to avoid or get past the issue. I think combined, these writings do significant work to meet these needs and hopes, and I think it’s especially helpful in The Ministry for the Future that the author doesn’t coddle the reader by presenting a very possible, dismal future.

I think writing about climate change does a lot to inform us about it, can highlight the urgency of acting, and alleviate anxieties that may stem from climate change. Obviously, one thing it can’t do is actually solve the climate crisis, but I think by writing about it, you have some influence on people which could lead to a solution.

Final Thoughts

I thought Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future most resonated with me because I had never read anything like this text. I thought it was interesting how Robinson took real policies and imagined a possible and probable future based on those ideas. In terms of its approach to communicating the climate crisis, I think I said it best previously: “the author doesn’t coddle the reader by presenting a very possible, dismal future.” I think this is an effective approach because even though Robinson doesn’t sugarcoat what is happening to the world in this possible future, just like in real life, she reports both the highs and the lows. In other words, yes, it’s definitely sad at certain times, but the reader is able to see the characters try to fix the issues in their entirety which makes solving the climate crisis seem much more doable.

I mentioned this in my previous entry, but I think the most important thing that writing can do to help with climate change is that it keeps us informed. My insights have developed, though, in the sense that writing about the climate crisis is effective because it can introduce the problem as new and interesting. When we only hear about climate change and the efforts to remedy it on the news, after a while, we tune it out, and although you could read dense articles or scholarly journals, these texts aren’t for everyone. Climate writing can be extremely accessible, and since this genre ranges from realistic to fantastical, there’s something for everyone. 

I decided to write a historical fiction piece that I knew I’d be able to write more about in the future. I based it on my own family history, with a special focus on my 2nd great-granduncle who was the first game warden in Alaska to fly a plane. I knew I wanted to write about him at some point this semester, and since I had been struggling to come up with something for this assignment, I decided now was as good a time as any. I feel like I did a really good job with dialogue and characterization. Fiction writing isn’t usually my first choice because I tend to have a hard time making dialogue sound realistic and creating characters that are dynamic, but I felt really good about my piece for these reasons. One thing I learned about nature writing from this piece is that it’s so helpful to ground fiction writing in history or real events when possible. Especially for me, since I don’t tend to write fiction, it’s difficult to pull a story out of thin air, so having that extra support makes the act of writing in this genre less overwhelming. One thing I learned about myself as a nature writer is that I just need to find the right things to write about. I spent most of this unit trying desperately to make another idea work, but I didn’t have any connection to it. However, when I finally started writing my final piece using my family history as a launch point, the writing went smoothly and I eliminated the writing block I was feeling.

First Thoughts

When I read, I’m more likely to pick up fiction, but since most of the books I read are set in a dystopian future, the characters are usually at odds with nature. This relationship usually isn’t a major theme in the books I read, but rather it’s a way for worldbuilding to occur. I think fiction is a really interesting mode for nature writing because the author can explore similar themes as in CNF, but they aren’t limited to their own narrative or to a completely factual, journalistic approach. This makes fiction really appealing to people who don’t have the ability to engage in nature very often but still care about it. I think one of the challenges of fiction for nature writing is the fact that it is such an open genre where the only limits are your imagination, so it seems like as a writer, you could easily be overwhelmed by the amount of detail that goes into creating your story.

Final Thoughts

The text that resonated with me most from our fiction readings was Ursula LeGuin’s The Wife’s Story. There are so many elements of this story that I appreciate, but I think what I like most is how much this piece adds to the field of nature writing despite the fact that what we gain is not apparent at first glance. Even though the story boils down to a reverse werewolf tale, the point that LeGuin seems to be making, considering we don’t know the characters start as wolves, is that human life is not that different from other animals. I think this is a very important perspective on nature because as I wrote in my journal “we don’t usually think of animal social structures as being related to our own.” This specific story differs obviously from other genres of nature writing because there are some supernatural elements at play. In a wider sense, the idea that fiction doesn’t have to be true or realistic allows the author to create a story that makes a very specific point as opposed to recognizing an existing point in a story that you are retelling.

Before we started reading fiction nature writing, I figured it would all be very different from reality, and while this may be true to some degree, I realized that our fiction readings were much more true to life than I had originally thought. In my first reflection, I noted that I thought the biggest challenge of this genre was that “the only limits are your imagination” so it would be easy to get lost in your own story, but fiction doesn’t have to be entirely removed from real life. In a book like Oryx and Crake, for example, although it takes place in an apocalyptic setting, so many pieces of the story are just elevated versions of science and technology we have today. I think what fiction brings to the conversation of nature writing is that it can help bring together elements of real-life that we may not have otherwise connected, but need to be seen together in order to understand something important about the world we live in.

First Thoughts

Like with CNF, I don’t think I’ve read much nature poetry despite taking a poetry class. However, in that class, I wrote some of my own poetry which often referred to elements of nature. Poetry as a genre has so many possibilities because the form is almost limitless, but one of the things I love about it is that the way poetry is written can affect the reader in physical ways. For instance, breaking lines in unexpected ways can make the reader feel breathless. If you combine this with a poem that consists of a long, winding sentence filled with imagery and detail that ends with one choppy sentence or word, then the reader feels like they are running aimlessly only to get the wind knocked out of them at the end, which builds and resolves the tension. This can make nature poetry incredibly engaging so the reader is completely absorbed in the writing. One of the challenges with poetry is that it’s typically shorter meaning that complex ideas can be difficult to convey unless you are purposeful in your word choices and the images you use.

Final Thoughts

I really loved Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit by Joy Harjo. It was a shorter piece, but it was intense and the message of nature having a duality about it really resonated with me. In terms of craft, it was interesting how this poem was written in prose and I think that added to the conversational tone that it has. I also liked how Harjo juxtaposes the Earth Spirit’s emotional warmth with the dark story she told. The insight I had about nature from this piece was that nature isn’t just something to write about when it’s beautiful, but that nature can also be dangerous and that side of it is just as important to write about. Something I learned about nature writing is that format can play an important role in conveying a message. Finally, when it comes to my philosophy of nature, I realized that I focus a lot more on the beauty of nature which is only a small part of what nature is, and in order to get a fuller understanding, I need to embrace the dark side of nature.

I have really appreciated how all of these poems come from different perspectives on the environment and how humans are involved in it. I also liked how someone could say so much in a poem even when they weren’t super long. There’s just a different feeling that I get when I read poetry versus CNF, but I think purpose-wise, they can accomplish similar things for nature writing. Still, poetry seems to be better suited for speaking on moments or feelings that aren’t attached to a larger story, while CNF is a better form for telling narrative experiences or discussing subjects with more concrete reasoning and evidence.

My poem is a commentary on how people don’t seem to live their lives truly engaged in the moment and how nature could be a way to do that. I wrote it in the hour we spent outside during lab and I remember that day I was feeling particularly restless about my own life. In workshop, one of the things I took away from what everyone said was that what I wrote about was relatable and I think that was partially because I was able to choose the right words to describe how I was feeling. One thing I learned about nature writing in this process was that nature doesn’t have to be the starting point but that it can guide you through a particular idea. Something I learned about myself is that the combination of writing my thoughts down and sitting out in the sun does wonders for my emotional state because I was feeling super stressed before we went outside, but after I felt totally at peace, at least for a little while.

I feel like my ideas have evolved about poetry since I wrote my original reflection. At the start, I saw poetry as a way to describe beautiful scenery and flowery messages in concentrated detail, but there’s definitely more to nature writing poetry than this. A lot of poems we read spoke more on bigger issues in the natural world and the different frameworks we can approach the environment which I thought was so powerful and had never thought about as poetry. I think overall I’ve just broadened my perspective on poetry as a form of nature writing and the types of messages it can convey.

First Thoughts

The nature writing I read most is usually creative nonfiction in the form of personal narratives or other narrative-based essays. Creative nonfiction is actually my favorite genre to write, so in general, I get very excited to read other writers from this genre and analyze their craft choices. That said, I can’t think of any specific works that stand out to me, but I get the most enjoyment out of writing that draws on nature and the environment as a source of imagery and symbolism where you wouldn’t necessarily expect it. I think one of the great things about communicating about nature in this way is there are almost endless possibilities when it comes to how the writer chooses to tell their story, such as which perspective to write from or what format would best convey the writer’s point. This can be a challenge as well because having so many options can be overwhelming and it can be easy for the point of the writing to get muddled during the writing process.

Final Thoughts

I’ve really enjoyed being able to see the natural world through the eyes of many different writers. Even though I’ve never been to most of the places that were written about, I felt like I could start to get to know them through the writers’ descriptions and commentary. Something I appreciate from this form of writing as a whole is that you can discuss a larger environmental issue through so many different lenses, including personal experience. I really like this because, across the form, there is a lens that just about every reader can connect with, making this a highly accessible way to read nature writing.

One essay that resonated with me was Lauren Markham’s The Crow Whisperer. As I was reading, I felt like I could relate to what she was talking about because I think it’s fairly easy to understand wildlife if you take the time to watch and listen. One thing that I really liked about this piece, in particular, was that she had an investigative approach. Not only did she relay personal experiences, but she also included testimonies from Buigues and the scientific perspective on communicating with animals. This made the article very well-rounded, and I appreciated having multiple perspectives to see the story. The insight I had about nature was that wildlife isn’t that different from humans. We both want respect from our neighbors and space to live as we please. In terms of nature writing, the biggest thing I learned was that vivid imagery doesn’t have to be the primary component of the piece for it to be good. Having comprehensive research on your subject can be just as impactful. Finally, this article didn’t necessarily shift my own philosophy of nature, but it did validate how I felt about how wildlife needs us just as much as we need them.

My CNF essay is about the meaning of paradise, and how that means the middle of the woods for me. I started writing it as our first lab free write and at the end of that session, I had the beginnings of the essay, though I did slightly modify it. When I went back to continue it, I didn’t really know where I was going, so I just decided to let my mind wander as I wrote. I think something I did well in this essay was capturing my imagination through imagery. There wasn’t a concrete place I had in mind while I was writing besides the wooded area behind my house, so the imagery really helped to ground the essay. One thing I learned about nature writing is that it can be hard to choose just one thing to write about since there are so many parts of nature to consider. Along these same lines, something I learned about myself is that sometimes simple is better. I often don’t write despite having a million ideas because I want to write about all of them, so this was a good way for me to practice restraint.

My original thoughts about creative nonfiction essays have become more developed. I talked originally about how nature writing in this form is so nuanced because not only are there a ton of things to write about, creative nonfiction is a vast genre that encompasses everything from personal narratives to journalism. Something I’ve come to realize though is that within each subgenre, the author’s style can greatly distinguish them from others writing similar things. I think the most important thing I’ve learned about creative nonfiction is just how diverse it is and because of this, just about anyone can find something that resonates with them in this genre.

I grew up and currently live in a pretty wooded area of southern coastal Maine, but my family is from farther north, so I feel very at home in the woods. My entire family loves camping, and my parents are no exception. I was born on Memorial Day, which is the start of camping season in Maine, so I was only a few weeks old when I went on my first tenting trip. To this day, I can’t wait for May to come because it means spending more time outside enjoying the fresh air away from WiFi and screens. 

I know I’ve read a decent amount of nature writing, but the only specific piece I can remember is an excerpt from Annie Dillard’s essay, Of Frogs and Flowers. Her writing style is so engaging to me because she talks about nature in such a whimsical way, at least in the excerpt I read, that it almost doesn’t feel real. Still, you can imagine yourself in her place experiencing the world through her eyes which is really cool. I think nature writing can be informational or for entertainment. Quite often, I think nature writing accomplishes both, either intentionally or simply because of the subject matter. With all this considered, nature writing can be an effective tool for conservation efforts because not only does it provide the information needed to understand how important nature is, but it also keeps the reader engaged. 

As a writing minor, I’ve been able to write in a lot of different styles and formats, mostly creatively, and I have already integrated a substantial amount of nature into my work. One thing I’ve noticed though is that I tend to write mostly about plant life and weather phenomena. While this is a subject matter I like to engage with, I’d also like to write about animals, specifically endangered or not commonly known species.