The natural world is all around us, but we often require a unique and creative form like poetry to capture its complexity. "For me, nature poems are about building a bridge between wonder and self," says award-winning writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Guest Judge for our Nature Poetry Competition. "I admire poems that examine the miracle of nature and attempt to find a mirror within human nature that brings such joy, clarity, and connection."
Read on for our Q&A with Rachel Eliza Griffiths, where she discusses imagery, multimedia writing, and how to create poems that connect us to the world we inhabit.
For me, nature poems are about building a bridge between wonder and self. There is an understanding in the writing that honors the mystery, joy, and grief visible and invisible all around us. I admire poems that examine the miracle of nature and attempt to find a mirror within human nature that brings such joy, clarity, and connection.
For me, it feels natural to mix these different forms. When I take a single breath, there are many things inside of me––brain, heart, lungs, memories, love––that are all happening at once. Working across multiple genres challenges me to experiment, engage, and celebrate the life I am hoping to share with others through imagination and art.
I think it's always helpful to try and spend as much time as possible inside of nature so that its voice can be heard amongst other distractions. Nature is everywhere, including urban settings. Being in nature, perhaps having a notebook or journal, is one of my favorite things. Sometimes it feels best to focus on a single, strong image. Other times, it feels powerful to recognize all of the complex layers of nature happening all at once. If you sing to this world, locate the song inside of you that connects you to trees, water, the elements, and your own body; it will make you feel something that is special. Something that only you can describe to us through a visual song of words.
I loved the journey! I have always written fiction/prose at the same time I've written poetry. So I did have some experience of moving inside of these spaces where sometimes poetry could help me write the novel. Yet there were other moments where I had to escort the poet away from the novel, which requires a different kind of world-building and understanding. The novel needed what I've known and witnessed, as a poet. At the same time, both poetry and fiction share my need to ask impossible questions, realizing that it's not the answer I'm looking for. It's the journey, the risk, the What-If.
I don't bring any expectations or assumptions. I want to savor being a reader. So I'd like to read anything that is startling, honest, vivid. I want to feel that what I'm reading is something that matters to the poet's life and that there is something in language that connects them/us to the natural world. I want to come away as if I could hear the clarity of the poet's voice and understand their delight and wonder, which we all share, about the natural world. I want to meet each entry as a Reader, a Listener, a Friend!
About the Guest Judge: Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet, visual artist, and novelist. She is a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for a NAACP Image Award. Griffiths is also a recipient of fellowships from many organizations, including Cave Canem Foundation, Kimbilio, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and Yaddo. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Tin House, and other publications. Promise is her first novel. (Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan)