Venturing Outside

An ecocritical approach to writing nature poetry

‘…if poetry is the original admission of dwelling, then poetry is the place where we save the earth.’ (p.283)

Jonathan Bate (2000) The Song of the Earth

Approaches to teaching poetry writing

• Close observation

• Shaping experience

• Language games

• Poetic forms and formulas

• Capturing everyday language

• Workshop collaboration

Ecocriticism

A burgeoning movement in literary studies• ASLE – Association for the Study of Literature &

the Environment• Buell, L. (1995) The Environmental Imagination• Kerridge, R. and Sammells, N. (1998) Writing

the Environment• Jonathan Bate (2000) The Song of the Earth• Garrard, G. (2004) Ecocriticism

Principles of ecocriticism

• makes the non human central to interpretation• cares about animals• addresses environmental contexts of reading and writing• tends to be concerned with moral and political values• aspires to interdisciplinarity• Challenges language as the first influence• Raises the profile of nature writing• Celebrates the natural and deplores its destruction• Advocates the experiential benefits of learning and

teaching outside (or at least looking out of the window…)

• Notice the detailed and analytical style of drawing in the following example from a field guide.

• Walk along your trail and choose a plant to draw in detail as if for a field guide. The purpose of this is to focus your attention on the detail of the plant. (Use the space overleaf for your sketches)

The shared experience of place and activity Literary

models Close observation

Collaboration

Scientific language

New knowledge of the ‘natural’ and constructed

Field guides

Herbal lore and legend

Geographical guides

Literary concepts: picturesque and sublime

Nature writing

Tintern Abbey The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail

Writing Workshop

Spinoffs

Creative writing anthology

The poetry anthology

• Use of literary models and concepts• Integration of illustration – drawing and

photos• Use of language from field guides and

research• Recounting shared moments of

experience• Reflecting (often ironically) on the method

Ecocritical approach to poetry

• An attitude to poetry as rooted in the rhythms of Earth

• Committed writing• Shared experience of environment – the

encounter• Reflection and research with

interdisciplinary knowledge and language• Starting with something real to write about• Promoting ‘the eighth intelligence’

Why write poetry?

to save the Earth?

‘The aesthetic experience of writing sharpens and focuses moral issues more effectively than any amount of didactic teaching on the environment’ Pirrie 1987