by Lisa Hiton
As our environment becomes increasingly impacted by humans, our relationship to the natural world changes. The nature of this relationship depends on how we behave as individuals and communities—and how we respond to these aspects of our changing world. We came from nature, after all. And while the great buildings of our cities, developing the digital world, and other images of modernity are often without our trees and rivers, the natural world—the earth— remains our true home.
Writing about nature can take many forms. From environmental sciences, to environmental studies, to literary nature writing, to ecopoetry, there are so many ways in which the larger world—be it built or natural—enter our understanding of being human. No matter where we’re from, what constitutes our identity, or what motivates our ambitions as writers, “we all share profound experiences of place and the impulse to write about those experiences” It is those words from our featured writers, Sean Prentiss and Joe Wilkins, that will guide us into the vast genre of environmental and nature writing.
What is Environmental Writing?
So what is environmental writing? Environmental writing encompasses many different genres. Recent environmental journalism includes articles about climate change, global warming, the impact of storm and weather systems on communities (physically, economically, socially, or otherwise).
At the forefront of environmental literary writing, perhaps, is that of creative nonfiction. From philosophical texts by Emerson and Thoreau, to The Empty Ocean by Richard Ellis, to The End of Nature by Bill McKibben, to poet Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, there are countless essays documenting our relationship to and misuse of nature.
In fiction, novels like Willa Cather’s My Ántonia featuring the sprawl of Nebraskan prairie lands, or Toni Morrison’s Beloved which brings to life the pastoral and painful plantation, Sweet Home, use landscape as central parts of the text. And of course, those vivid, iconic countryside descriptions in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
Books for children are full of literary environmental writing too, with our beloved texts like Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, the tropical rainforest in Jeannie Baker’s Where the Forest Meets the Sea, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax–the creature who “speaks for the trees”— and Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.
But what qualities and terms bring these together in one genre?
Nonfiction writer, Sean Prentiss, and poet Joe Wilkins, have blessed us with a book that answers our larger question (what is environmental writing?) and teaches us how to be better environmental writers in any of our chosen genres–Environmental and Nature Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology. And further, they have an answer to this question, bringing these different expressions of nature writing into one definition:
We call this kind of writing—writing that is as concerned with the physical world as it is with character or plot, writing that speaks to the ways human journeys are bound up in landscape and place, writing that allows us to see the natural world and our place in it more clearly, writing that inspires and challenges us to enter and know the natural world, writing that helps move through that world with more care and wonder—nature and environmental writing.
(Prentiss and Wilkins, 7)
As we work through their directions, prompts, and readings, this idea will remain central: that our experiences with place (or our character’s experiences with place) can drive our writing. In fact, it must, if we hope to have a viable environment for generations to come.
Prentiss and Wilkins have organized this craft textbook by introducing readers and writers to various techniques in environmental and nature writing. Each chapter begins with relevant readings paired with free writing and vignette making. As the reader gets deeper into the chapter, Prentiss and Wilkins delve into specific techniques and aspects—motivations, histories, pastoral narratives, adventure narratives, kinds of images, creating place-character, etc. Each chapter ends with exercises and prompts to pair.
This structure makes for a craft book that benefits all writers, no matter how amateur or professional. And as they guide us down this vast and thrilling trail, this book’s design “teaches readers how to use the techniques of creative writing to turn our interactions with nature and the environment into powerful stories. As such, this book focuses more fully on our shared desire to write essays, stories, and poems in the nature and environmental writing tradition.”
Environmental Writing Examples
Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: Walden, or, Life in the Woods is a central text in nature writing by transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau. From the opening words, “I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately”, Thoreau vividly brings the reader into his experience of living at Walden Pond in Concord, MA. This book is also original in its hybrid nature, serving as part memoir, part philosophy, and part spiritual quest among other things.
- Why are Thoreau’s actions considered “radical”? Would we consider this radical today? Why or why not?
- How does Thoreau’s project lend itself to living a simpler life? What are the benefits of this “simple” way of being? Spiritually? Economically? Ethically?
- What would Thoreau think of Walden Pond now? Why?
The Ecopoetry Anthology edited by Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura Gray-Street: In this comprehensive anthology of poems about nature and the environment, the editors have curated a collection of works that show historical and contemporary understandings of the relationship between humanity and nature. From poets of the past such as Walt Whitman, to Robert Frost, to Langston Hughes to our contemporary titans, such as Jorie Graham, CD Wright, Mary Oliver, and Carolyn Forché, this anthology shows us an entire world within the larger genre that is concerned with how we humans occupy the splendor of the world at large.
- Based on sampling the poems in this collection, what makes a poem an “ecopoem”? What elements can you name about the poem’s content? What about form and technique?
- Anne Fisher-Wirth’s opening essay talks about her first encounter with Robert Frost’s poem, “Spring Pools”. How does the poem use personification? Why do humans impose personification onto inanimate objects?
- What actions do poets need to write poems like this? How might those skills be in dialogue with Thoreau’s teachings at Walden Pond?
The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris: As the digital age rears forward, we risk losing the natural world, and the words we use to describe it. As dictionaries add words like “Google”, “broadband”, “photobomb”, “ping”, and the like, other words fall out. How many of the trees can you name in your backyard? What about flowers? What about birds? This crisis—losing words of the natural world—is the focus of this illustrated book.
- What do we use in the absence of words to translate what we see and know?
- How do the illustrations fit into the larger hopes of the book?
- What are some things you see everyday in nature that you don’t know the name for? Make a document—visual, photographic, written, etc—of this collection.
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein: Klein’s book suggests that “climate” is not simply another political topic, but rather one that is linked to our entire economic structure, one we cannot help without radically addressing our capitalism in the West.
- How are these ideas in dialogue with Thoreau? How are they different?
- What changes suggested in the book can be applied to your home or community?
- What subjects of the environment bring out your political understanding of human societies?
- What are your research interests?
- Can environmental journalism ever be removed from political inquiry? Why or why not?
So, dear writers, as you start reading and beginning your environmental writing journey, remember to reflect on your most beloved experiences with the world outside. They can teach us all about where you came from and how that might help you decide where else you’ll want to go in this one life.
About Lisa
Lisa Hiton is an editorial associate at Write the World. She writes two series on our blog: The Write Place where she comments on life as a writer, and Reading like a Writer where she recommends books about writing in different genres. She’s also the interviews editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the poetry editor of the Adroit Journal.
