Nature in Poetry

Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something

*

This is an excerpt from W.S. Merwin's poem "For A Coming Extinction". I like when nature writers take a more conservative stand-point towards nature. Perhaps "conservative" is the wrong word, though. But I must admit, poems that idolize animals and celebrate nature on the surface can be very cliche and boring. This poem is not celebrating endangered or extinct animals on the surface, but is idolizing humans in a demeaning way. The truth is...is that the poem is very honest. There are several types of honesty, though. An objective and a subjective honesty. And the strange thing is that I don't know which is which. One type of honesty would be that we, as a human race, determine what is important. And what is important is us. Everything is based on our perspective. If we really wanted animals to have rights, we would let them vote. That type of thing. We naturally override everything natural around us because we obtain a consciousness that allows us to do (or think) so. The other truth is that we are not, really, any better than the natural world. "Better" is subjective, for it is a term that we create and strive for as a human race. But in the long run, just to sound like a broken record on purpose (which is what this poem is doing, and I like that), like the manatees and whales, we're all going to die.

Another interesting approach to nature is embodied in Lucille Clifton's poem "defending my tongue". Not only is nature landscape in this poem, but it is also lifestyle and voice. The natural voice of this poem is very evident--that of an uneducated African American woman defending the tongue of her ancestors.

Both of these poems are very blunt and verbal poems, which I like. I find it interesting, though, that I also admire Pattiann Rogers' poem "The Hummingbird: A Seduction". The title itself hints at sexuality, and although there is sexuality in this poem, it is very subtle and I like how it doesn't seem forced or too blunt.

And if I saw your sweeping and sucking
Performance of swirling egg and semen in the air,
The weaving, twisting vision of red petal
And nectar and soaring rump, the rush of your win
In its grand confusion of arcing and splitting
Created completely out of nothing just for me.

*

This is a love poem. Some of it gets a bit carried away, in my opinion, but there are beautiful parts in this poem that show a sincere celebration of the lover. "I would bless the base/of each of your feathers and touch the tine/of string muscles binding your wings..." Such a beautiful image right there! It is interesting that the poet chose the hummingbird to demonstrate this love, for the hummingbird is quick, easy to not notice, and brash in its movement while at the same time very deliberate, beautiful, graceful, and in flight. Personally, if I were to write a love poem that concerns a bird, I would choose something larger, perhaps. And slow. Something that perches high up and observes, then swoops down for a closer look or a kill. Something predatorial, but only because that is what it must do. Predatorial might be wrong. Maybe I'm searching for intent and deliberation. A goal. A desire to pursue. To pursue with grace.

An uneffective poem would be "Milkweed" by James Wright. The poem is too self-indulged to the point where the "me-ness" drowns the image or essence of the milkweed. I'm not even sure what is going on in the poem because I am so concerned with what the narrator is explaining about himself. When I think the milkweed is being alluded to, I doubt myself, thinking, "This isn't the milkweed, this is something else. Something more alive." I need a better description or presence of the milkweed in order to understand the presence of the narrator.

Because poetry is a technique that allows us to narrow or zero in on something particular, one would think that nature would be an easy subject for poetry, but it absolutely isn't. For all the comparing of nature to humanity that we do, we do not always compare nature to our own personal lives...the simple things we do between walls and underneath roofs. When we think of people vs. nature or people & nature, we think pluralistically, rather than individually or singly. It is easy to use nature as a metaphor or soundboard for how awful we can be as humans, but we don't often write poems about how nature reflects our experiences in the bathroom as we brush our teeth or do the dishes or say goodbye to loved ones. I think it would be interesting to see more of that. Interesting. And mandatory.