Response 11: Nature and Environmental Writing, To Continue

“Nature and Environmental Writing.” I heard the name of the course and knew that’s what I wanted to do. I’m here to write. I’m passionate about the environment. This, I realized, is going to be my channel.

This course was a wonderful introduction to all the different approaches one can take to writing about nature. Poetry, rants, essays. I really loved them all. As a beginning nature/environmental writer, it was so helpful to read a variety of works and decide which methods and arguments were the most compelling. I can honestly say that there was not one subject matter I cared about more than another; no environmental issue was most important. But I tended to favor those writers whose works were both influential, arguing for a cause, as well as crafted lyrically. Gretel Ehrlich, Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, and the selected contemporary nature poets are writers that I would like to emulate.

And I think I’ve already started to. Every week, we’ve been posting blog entries, both in response to our readings and about our “nature spots,” which we visit every week. I’ve really enjoyed these tasks because they’ve pushed me to write, even when I don’t feel like it. Having a journal routine has allowed me to keep track of the progression of my writing, and it’s so interesting to see how I’ve changed through this semester. My writing has clearly been influenced week to week, depending on what we’ve read. After we read Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, my blog was an argumentative rant mixed with descriptive scene. But once we started reading the poetry, I think went off the deep end. I noticed my place blogs have become more and more abstract over the last few weeks. I recently reread my first place blog entry and then read the one I was working on at that moment. I laughed. “She’s gone crazy?” Sheryl must think. No, I think that this blog has been a huge success. Whatever direction my writing is going, it’s clearly in pursuit of a voice, a personal one, and that’s what we’re trying to do in this course and in this program.

As well as the blogs, another hands-on aspect of this course that I really enjoyed were the field trips. We’re writing about nature, reading about nature, talking about it, but how can you know anything about it unless you’re IN it? So we went to Eden Hall Farm on the coldest morning we’d had that fall, and together as a class we planted a garden. It was such a wonderful experience to be out there in the dirt instead of sitting under the fluorescent lights at our desks. I felt we really bonded then and were able to connect with our subject matter more definitely.

The visits from Jimmy Santiago Baca and Nancy Gift were really special, and I felt privileged to be able to talk with them before their public readings. We certainly got a lot done in our class, now that I’m thinking about it. It was really nice to have so much activity, so many different aspects to the course. Out of all my classes, this was definitely the most engaging and interactive.

Our class is ending, but nature and environmental writing is not a phrase I’m leaving behind with the semester. Marc Nieson told our class in regards to finding our writing voices, “You write about what you love the most and what brings you to your knees.” This is it. I look forward to experimenting with different forms, continuing to dabble in poetry, expanding my essays, and hopefully reaching an audience, bringing them to their knees.