I read all the poems for this weeks’ assignment in one sitting. Patiann Rogers, James Wright, W.S. Merwin, Maurice Guevera, Galvay Kinnell, Laurie Kutchins, Sheryl St. Germain. The only things that separated their words were thick lines, the flip of pages. But my experiences reading these poems were so strong and varying depending on the poet. Whoever thinks that nature poetry is just describing the pretty flowers has oceans to cross. I could not continue reading W.S. Merwin’s “The Last One” past the fifth stanza, and I only reread it today in order to write this assignment. But Sheryl St. Germain’s subject-matter appealed to me because of its proximity to the narrator, it’s ways of connecting nature to human experience. I learned a lot from reading these poems, both about what I appreciate in poetry, and where the themes of my own nature poems tend to be focused. But mostly, this montage of poetry showed me how all interpretations of nature can be equally as beautiful in the hands of a talented artist.
While I had trouble with one of his poems, W.S. Merwin’s works inspired me because they were the only ones in this collection of poetry that I believed to have an environmental message or, as we sometimes say in class, an “agenda.” At no point when I read Merwin’s poems did I feel threatened or preached to, and I think that would have been detrimental to their success. How does he avoid this? I think probably because these poems are abstract and self-deprecating. In “For a Coming Extinction,” the narrator talks directly to the gray whale, a species on the verge of extinction, and tells him what to say as he approaches the creator. The narrator is trying to come to terms with the actions of humanity, trying to forgive himself for being the cause of this great animal’s extinction. He can do this. He justifies it. “Tell him / That it is we who are important.” But the tone of the poem feels full of self-doubt, especially in the line, “winding along your inner mountains / Unheard by us.” Merwin is playing here with a character, man, who believes he can tell the creator what he has created, but at the same time, we don’t hear the words, recognize them as words, of any other animals in this world.
“The Last One” was troubling for me because of the simple sentence structure and repetition. I struggled to get through it, though I appreciate its message. “They” are so ambiguous. Are “they” the loggers, the trees? I think they are both at different parts throughout the poem. The ambiguity of this poem is what stops it from being threatening and accusatory and is what allows the text to evoke themes more subtly, while still retaining the tension.
I thought Patiann Rogers’ poems were successful because they present an unconventional relationship between humans and nature, perhaps urging the reader to stray from his or her prior conceptions of this relationship. In “A Hummingbird: A Seduction,” Rogers’ narrator imagines herself as a hummingbird, her lover the flower on which she is feeding, for Rogers is aware of the erotic natures in which hummingbirds suck nectar from flowers. She uses language that is evocative of love making, words like “sucking, “performance” “egg,” “semen,” “came.” She’s not hiding it. In this last stanza, “And I would take you and take you and take you” is repetitive, suggesting a sexual rhythm and also obsession.
Similarly, in “A Blessing,” the narrator describes a relationship between herself and a pony, one that the reader may be unfamiliar with. “I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,” she writes, “For she has walked over to me / And nuzzled my left hand.” The narrator connects with the animal in a way that transcends their species. Feeling the happiness that accompanies this experience, she writes, “Suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom.”
Rogers uses nature in every facet of these poems. The stories themselves are relating to experiences in nature, with many beautiful images of animals and plants. But also, the narrators’ emotions become that of the natural world. “I would break / Into blossom.” Rogers’ characters transcend species, they become plants. Rogers is acutely aware of the emotions of nature, the sensuality of the flowers, the eroticism of the hummingbird. This is what makes her poems successful. They are vibrant through and through.
Sheryl St. Germain shares similarities with Patiann Rogers. Both poets use nature as a mirror to reflect their human emotions. St. Germain takes this a little further in her writer, summoning events from her life, relationships with lovers, children, her mother, and finding ways that these stories reflect in her natural surroundings. I really like this kind of writing about nature because it shows a deep personal connection with the environment and also conveys how like us the animals and plants are. “At the Equator” resonated with me especially. I tried to imagine any of the other poets we read and what their poem about the equator would be. The equator. It’s not even a tangible thing. But it’s a place and it’s deeply symbolic. A line that separates. St. Germain combines what is personal and specific to that which is natural, creating something erotic. As I reader, I feel a connection to her narrators as I do when reading Mary Oliver, that I am joining her on a walk, reflecting with her on what she sees. The difference, and one that I very much like, is that St. Germain delves into the past. These characters are real.
Every week in my fiction class, we have to write one hundred words or less on the subject of one word. Someone chooses the word each class, and this week the word is “yellow.” After I read these poems, I wrote my one hundred-word assignment on “yellow.” I didn’t post one last week for the Mary Oliver assignment so I thought I would share this one here. I don’t know much about writing poems, but I’m trying.
My Mother’s Tomatoes
I woke late in the afternoon
as teenagers often do
to the summer sun through my
window, the cicadas,
my own hot sweat.
In the kitchen was a bowl
of cherry tomatoes, freshly
picked from my mother’s garden.
They were shiny and still
yellow. Unripe and transparent.
I could see right through
their blotchy skins.
Why does she do this?
They would sleep soundly
another night, clasped
to strong green stems.
Is it too hard to let the tomatoes grow?
“Why I went into the Jungle” reminds me very much of a story that I recently wrote for my non-fiction class about my experience in the jungle. What I appreciate about this poem is something I’m starting to do in a lot of my writing. The narrator here went into the jungle because she wanted “…to feel / darkness heavy and wet around me / like sex or death, the molecules of night /dancing in my skin like jaguars.” The jungle is extremely sensual, and to be there, to really be there, is to become a part of it. In this poem, I feel the narrator taking on the jungle’s character, becoming the malarial waters, being born again a dark thing. To go to the jungle, you have to be willing to become that which the jungle embodies: wildness. In my story, the narrator undergoes a transformation, and by the end there is hardly a distinction between herself and the character of the jungle. I like the idea of a place being a character in a story or a poem and the human characters adopting or becoming part of that place. Again, I think this is because it makes the reader view his environment and nature in a more intimate way, a way that perhaps he’s never thought about before. Anything that we can do as writers to help people get closer to nature is important.
Reading all these poems was enlightening for me because I’m finding more and more that I really do enjoy poetry, though I’ve never had any formal training. The different types of contemporary nature poetry excited me and got me thinking about what issues I’m pursuing would be more effectively written on a poetic front.
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