National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 30

April 29, 2021 Catherine Flynn16 Comments

“Poetry gives us a place to make beautiful sense of life.”
~ Joy Harjo ~

Welcome to the final Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month! Please be sure to visit Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme for the Poetry Friday Roundup. I can’t quite believe that April is over. One of the reasons I began this project was to find a way back into a daily writing habit. Although I didn’t post every day (“Because,” as my friend Heidi would say, “you know, life.“), I did write a poem in response to the work of all twenty-five writers profiled by Kathryn Aalto in Writing Wild. But somewhere along the way, this project morphed into something so much more. All of the women I met in this book are truly remarkable. Some have conquered overwhelming obstacles, including ne’er-do-well husbands, physical abuse and alcoholism. After spending a day or so with each of them, I found myself thinking, “She is my favorite.” Of course, I could never choose one over another. I am truly in awe of each and every one. Somewhere along the way, I read that Diane Ackerman calls herself a “poetic science storyteller.” I immediately thought, “that’s what I want to be when I grow up!” This work has changed me and inspired me in countless ways. I know it will be influencing my writing and my life for years to come.

For this final day, I decided to create a cento, drawing on all the poems I drafted this month. Italicized lines are directly from the work of other writers. Their names are listed in order at the bottom of the poem.

“A Complicated Beauty”

Things are at a tipping point.
Earth, mother to all,
weaves a web of memories.
Know and say their names.
Flood the world with empathy.

A bee buzzes hopefully
around eager bursts of green,
evidence of the wild wonder of the world.

In the day’s waning light, the world can shimmer.
Winged creatures of the night
with their own ways of being,
chime a silent celebration.

Star gazers look up in wonder,
notice the ghost moon in the wide, pale sky.

Borders evaporate.

As daily life accepts the night’s arrest,
a small spider,
pearly and round
with delicate legwork,
plays the music of Nature.

Winding skyward along an ancient path
heat, radiating, heart to heart
resilience can emerge.

Alchemy powers earth’s enduring nature,
promises for tomorrow.
In twilight’s glimmer-glow,
forge a new kinship with Earth.
The most important magic lies within you.

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

Writers whose lines are included in this poem, including the title:
Camille T. Dungy
Leslie Marmon Silko
Camille T. Dungy
Gene Stratton-Porter
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Carolyn Finney

Previous Writing Wild posts:

Day 1: Dorothy Wordsworth
Day 2: Susan Fenimore Cooper
Day 3: Gene Stratton-Porter
Day 4: Mary Austin
Day 5: Vita Sackville-West
Day 6: Nan Shepherd
Day 7: Rachel Carson
Day 8: Mary Oliver
Day 9: Carolyn Merchant
Day 10: Annie Dillard
Day 11: Gretel Ehrlich
Day 12: Leslie Marmon Silko
Day 13: Diane Ackerman
Day 14: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Day 15: Lauret Savoy
Day 16: Rebecca Solnit
Day 17: Kathleen Jamie
Day 18: Carolyn Finney
Day 19: Helen Macdonald
Day 20: Saci Lloyd
Day 21: Andrea Wulf
Day 22: Padma Venkatraman
Day 23: Camille T. Dungy
Day 24: Elena Passarello
Day 25: Amy Liptrot
Day 27: Elizabeth Rush

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 27

April 27, 2021 Catherine Flynn2 Comments

Elizabeth Rush is the final author profiled in Writing Wild. Rush’s book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, has been called “a democratization of climate change discourse.” According to Kathryn Aalto, “Rising combines the best of lyrical nature writing and science journalism to turn an oft-politicized issue into an accessible human story.” (p. 241)

I didn’t have time to read all of the books written by the women who have inspired me to write 26 poems in 27 days. But I did spend many hours listening to radio interviews, podcasts, and taped events. Not only did this allow me to become familiar with their work, it gave me a sense of their voice. I could listen to Elizabeth Rush’s voice all day. She brings a level of intelligence and compassion to her writing that is breathtaking. During an interview, she told Aalto that “writing and reporting about people–especially vulnerable ones–is an act of empathy.” (p. 244) I adapted this line to come up with the strike line for today’s poem, another Golden Shovel.

A tupelo tree in Rhode Island. Photo by Elizabeth Rush

What story is this rampike writing?
Is it warning us that it is
too late to save our planet from an
apocalyptic sea change? Or an omen to act
quickly, boldly? It whispers, “Listen to the earth with all of
your senses, then flood the world with empathy.“

A rampike is a dead tree that is still standing. Rush writes about the proliferation of rampikes in areas where the salinity of the ground water due to rising seas is killing forests all along the east coast of the United States. You can learn more about this devastation here.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 26

April 26, 2021 Catherine Flynn4 Comments

Amy Liptrot is one of the youngest writers profiled in Writing Wild, but the story of her descent into alcoholism and eventual recovery is riveting. Kathryn Aalto calls Liptrot’s memoir, The Outrun (2015), “both a modern recovery story and classic nature writing–a celebration of a particular place and the search for how best to live in the world.”

As I listened to Liptrot discuss her book on 5 x 15, I was captivated by her description of the grimlins, a word derived from Norwegian that means “twilight, the first or last gleams of daylight.” We have lovely twilights here in Connecticut, but apparently, the grimlins or “da simmer dims,” as they’re also called, are spectacular in the Orkney Islands. I couldn’t resist using this word to inspire today’s haiku.

at the edge of day
twilight’s glimmer-glow enfolds
the world in magic

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 25

April 25, 2021April 25, 2021 Catherine Flynn5 Comments

Kathryn Aalto says that Elena Passarello‘s book, Animals Strike Curious Poses (2017) “is the best book on animals I’ve read.” (p. 228) She goes on to say that “Passarello’s writing is playful” with “a tender poignancy” underlying each essay. Her writing is also infused with empathy, which is on full display in her first book of essays, Let Me Clear My Throat (2012). In this collection, Passarello writes “about the relationship of voice to identity.“

Exploring this relationship between voice and identity has emerged as a common thread between the writers profiled in Writing Wild. As I pondered how to write a poem in response to Passarello’s work, I watched a video my son posted on Instagram of him running a rapid on a river in North Carolina. I thought about the years of kayaking he’s done and how that experience allows him to “read” the river, to listen to the river’s voice, so he can safely navigate his way through the rocks. Every river has a distinctive voice, and unfortunately, we don’t always listen to what they are telling us. I decided to write a “scavenger hunt” poem, explained by Amanda Gorman in this video. I didn’t follow Gorman’s directions exactly, but I gathered a nice assortment of words (highlighted in bold) to include in my poem, which is still very “drafty.”

Slip into your boat.
Borders evaporate.
You and the river converge.
Be still.
Listen.

The murmuring river
has a tale to tell.
Tongues of water curl,
vees form, marking a path
through the wild tumult
of froth and foam.

Be still.
Listen.
The river points
the way.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 24

April 24, 2021April 24, 2021 Catherine Flynn7 Comments

Here is a happy surprise from this project. Not only have I been introduced to many amazing, thought-provoking writers, I’ve also delved more deeply into the work of writers I had read before but had only skimmed the surface of their work. This is true of Camille T. Dungy. I am in awe of the scope of her writing, of her precise imagery and powerful metaphors.

Kathryn Aalto describes Dungy as a “master of poetic synthesis” who “fuses fact, observation and revelation to offer poetry’s inevitable surprise.” (p. 218) Dungy is a poet, essayist, and professor of writing. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient whose writing has won the American Book Award. She states that she is “never not thinking about nature. Because I don’t understand a way we can be honest about who we are without understanding that we are nature.” (Aalto, p. 218)

When asked by Aalto what she wants “people to get out of her poems” Dungy explained to that she wants them to find “beauty and the heightened craft that comes from looking at everyday objects with respect.” (p. 223)

I had several false starts finding a way to respond to Dungy’s stunning poetry and essays. In the end, I let Dungy’s words speak for themselves in this cento.

Silence is one part of speech
the impossible hope of the firefly
imperceptible as air.

You are not required to understand.

This is the world we have
arranged,
a complicated beauty.

The snow
builds a mountain
unto itself.

What happens today is fed by what I did yesterday.
I will plant my seeds
plant them for abundance tomorrow
a demonstration of care
evidence of the wild wonder of the world

and into the world: music.
The song is drink, is color. Come. Now. Taste.

After which, nothing was ever the same.

Cento line sources in order:

“Language“
“Characteristics of Life”
“There are these moments of permission“
“Arthritis is one thing, the hurting another“
“Daisy Cutter“
“FROM DIRT”
“In her mostly white town, an hour from Rocky Mountain National Park, a black poet considers centuries of protests against racialized violence”
“FROM DIRT”
“Letter to America: Diversity, a Garden Allegory with Suggestions for Direct Action”
“FROM DIRT”
“FROM DIRT”
“FROM DIRT”
“Letter to America: Diversity, a Garden Allegory with Suggestions for Direct Action”
“What To Eat, And What To Drink, And What To Leave For Poison”
“Trophic Cascade”

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 21

April 21, 2021 Catherine Flynn12 Comments

Today’s featured author, Andrea Wulf, wrote one of my favorite books of all time. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humbolt’s New World (2015) is a breathtaking introduction to a man Wulf calls the inventor of “the web of life, the concept of nature as we know it today.” (Wulf, p. 6) In 2015, Wulf explained to Science Friday host Ira Flatow that “we have to use our imagination and emotion to understand nature,” and that we owe this understanding to Alexander von Humbolt.

I’ve written another Golden Shovel today from a statement Andrea Wulf made during her 2015 interview on Science Friday. She said, “you can only protect nature if you really love nature.” That statement has been the driving force behind this project, and I feel certain it was the driving force behind Kathryn Aalto‘s creation of Writing Wild. I searched my memory for a time when my love of nature was palpable, and recalled the morning I spotted this stunning spider’s web. It was only as I was working on the poem that I remembered Wulf’s words and decided I had chosen the right topic for today’s poem.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 20

April 20, 2021 Catherine Flynn13 Comments

In November of 2019, when the world still felt normal, I hosted a baby shower for my son and daughter-in-law. Wildfires were raging through Australia, and news reports were dire about the impact on wildlife, especially koalas. I remember saying to my cousin that I couldn’t imagine my granddaughter growing up in a world without koalas.

Today’s featured author is Saci Lloyd, whose novels imagine a world that is missing much more than koalas. Lloyd is a British teacher and writer of “cli-fi,” a genre that has “sprung from the ticking clock of climate change and explores the consequences of a warming planet.” (Aalto, p. 197). Written for teens, Lloyd’s books The Carbon Diaries 2015 (2009) and The Carbon Diaries 2017 (2010) are “a wonderfully mordant look at the coming environmental meltdown“. Lloyd explained her approach to Kathryn Aalto this way: “The urban kids I teach…have no upbringing in nature and so the humor is the bridge to get them there to care.” (Writing Wild, p. 199)

Writing a poem inspired by Lloyd’s work was quite a challenge. I desperately want people to care, but recognize the danger of being didactic. In the end, I opted for another Golden Shovel, using the end of this quote as my strike line. It may be didactic, but it’s the truth.

“Climate change is a massive issue. I believe we are a brilliant species. If we can do the things we’ve done already, we can fix this too.”
Saci Lloyd, from ClimateMagic

The question was never if.
Glaciers are melting, fires are blazing. We
(well, some of us) simply choose to ignore reality. Can
we muster the will to act? We must do
whatever our battered planet needs to heal. The
survival of countless species is at stake. Things
are at a tipping point. We’ve
wasted too much time already.
Damage has been done
to the air, the water, the land. But we
are resilient; we’ve met challenges in the past. We can
rise to this challenge, too. We can fix
what needs fixing. Create and innovate. We made this
mess. Now it’s time to clean it up, before it’s too

late.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 19

April 18, 2021 Catherine Flynn16 Comments

Kathryn Aalto calls Helen Macdonald‘s 2016 book, H is for Hawk, a “masterpiece of literary nonfiction that braids memoir, literary biography, and falconer’s diary into a beautiful example of new nature writing.” (p. 187) The Guardian states that “loss and grief are the emotional landscape of Macdonald’s work.”

Last spring, in the early days of the pandemic, I finally got around to reading H is for Hawk. Macdonald’s writing was full of pain, a mirror for the fear I was feeling. Coincidentally, or maybe not, a hawk built a nest in a tree near enough to the edge of the road where I walk that I could watch it each day. I began to see this hawk’s natural reproductive cycle as a defiant act of life in the face of so much death. During that desperate time, this hawk family gave me hope.

H is for Hawk
An Abecedarian

Assembled from scavenged twigs, a nest rests in the
Branches of an old oak,
Cradling a clutch of
Delicate
Eggs.
Far above prying eyes, this woven bowl is
Guarded by two fierce
Hawks.
Incubating inside, three pearly
Jewels, speckled brown, are
Kept warm by both
Loyal parents. Patient, nearly
Motionless, only heads bob back and forth,
Noticing all potential threats.
On each chest, a bare brood
Patch covers the eggs like a
Quilt, heat
Radiating, heart to heart.
Spongy moss and
Tufts of grass
Upholster the nest, cushioning its
Valuable cache. Soon, hatchlings will
Wriggle free of their shells
eXclaiming their arrival on a spring day,
Yellow daffodils dancing on a warm
Zephyr in celebration.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 18

April 18, 2021 Catherine Flynn11 Comments

Over the course of this project, I’ve been aware of the danger of appropriating and/or (mis)interpreting an experience different from my own. This is especially true today. As a white child growing up in western Connecticut, I was surrounded by other white children who came from families similar to my own. We tromped through the fields and woods, rode our bikes everywhere, swam in nearby lakes and ponds. That others were excluded from this experience simply never occurred to me. The media–TV, movies, books, newspaper–only confirmed my experience.

Today’s featured author is Carolyn Finney, a black woman who grew up in the white suburbs of New York City, had a childhood filled with similar activities, but experienced them very differently. Her parents were caretakers on an estate in Westchester County, the only black family for miles. In her book Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, Finney explores “the linkages between representations of the ‘Great Outdoors’ and the ‘African American experience in the United States, in terms of attitudes, beliefs, and interactions pertaining to the environment.” She wants “to understand the relationship between African Americans and various processes that define and inform what we call ‘environment’ (whether as matters of discourse or aspects of the natural world).” Her book considers “the legacy of an environmental narrative that denies the complex history of various cultural groups whose access to and use of natural resources were mediated by policies and laws that limited their possibilities.”

Like Lauret Savoy’s Trace, this book asks hard questions. Questions that deserve our thoughtful consideration. This found poem, created with words and phrases found in the Introduction and Epilogue to Black Faces, White Spaces, is my initial understanding of Finney’s work. I have tried to represent the truth and intent of Finney’s words. If this poem does not, the fault is mine.

Black faces
outside looking in:
exclusion from
“white wilderness.”
Socially constructed,
shapes reality,
informs identity,
ideas of wilderness.

Racism impacts participation.
Creates roadblocks,
constrains environmental interactions.

Shift cognitive maps.
Offer opportunity.
Draw outside the lines
of the Great Outdoors
to see how
resilience can emerge.
Engage the unlikely,
the unfamiliar
Attempt to grasp our future
with clear intention

and eyes wide open.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

National Poetry Month: Writing Wild, Day 17

April 17, 2021 Catherine Flynn12 Comments

Kathleen Jamie is an award-winning poet, essayist, and professor of poetry. Her work, Kathryn Aalto explains, “force you to stop, bend down to examine that eye-catching thing you see, and contemplate other worlds washed ashore at your feet.” (p.170)

Jamie believes that “nature resides in the cracks and crevices of daily life,” and I quite agree. The sights and sounds gathered on my walks are an endless source of inspiration for me. Today’s poem is after Jamie’s poem, “The Dipper.“

It was spring, damp and raw,
I’d walked along the edge of fields
when I saw nestled in leaf litter
a cluster of grape hyacinth.

They sat beside a rock wall,
surrounded by a shock of green,
this pyramid of purple bells,
and chimed a silent celebration.

It wasn’t mine to pluck.
I can’t pick this first flower
that knows April’s icy rains
yet sings of spring.

Previous Writing Wild posts:

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