A good place to find nature poetry is the Academy of American Poets website. You can search for poets, or use the website’s filter to find all works categorized as nature poems. [2] X Research source Search for poems by poets known for their nature-based works. Gary Snyder, for example, is an American poet who’s been writing about nature for much of his life. [3] X Research source Romantic poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats are also known to include nature in their poetry. [4] X Research source Check your library for published books of nature poetry, anthologies, and nature-themed literary journals.
In contemporary times, nature takes many forms. You don’t have to go out to the countryside or deep in a forest to find inspiration - try visiting an urban park if you can’t get into the wilderness. [5] X Research source Consider seeking inspiration where the natural world meets the pavement. Even remote forests wouldn’t be accessible without roads to lead you there - perhaps you can find something inspiring in that transitional zone.
As you observe the natural world around you, begin by noticing what you see, hear, smell, and feel. Next, try to draw associations from the things you’re observing. What do your observations remind you of in your own life? Why do you notice the things you do in nature? You can take another step back and consider where you first learned to interact with nature. Don’t worry about producing poetry yet. Just try to notice things in nature, write down your initial observations, and work out your own understanding of those observations.
Read through the list of observations you compiled. Try to visualize different images that come to mind when you reflect on each observation. Your images don’t have to be directly tied to what you’ve seen/heard in nature. It can be any association your mind makes. Write down a description of those images/associations.
Theme can be thought of as a combination of an idea and an opinion on that idea. Revisit your observations, and read through the images/associations you expanded on. What about your experience stands out to you the most? What does all of it mean to you? Does being in nature make you think about life? Death? Lost loved ones? Current events, either in your own life or in politics/society/culture? Ultimately, the theme you decide on will influence not only what you write about, but how you write it as well.
Try making a list with three columns: sense, object, and thought. [8] X Research source Think about what you observed in nature through the lens of your chosen theme. How do your other observations/thoughts/descriptions relate to your theme? Choose the most descriptive, the most image-filled, or the most emotionally powerful words/phrases/lines you come up with, and set them aside as possible material.
Keep in mind that it is possible to rhyme too much as well, which can make a poem start to sound a bit like a nursery-rhyme. [9] X Research source Experiment with rhyming to see what you like and remember that you can always revise to include more or less rhyming words. Rhyming can also narrow your choice of words as well. For example, it is much easier to find a rhyming word for “tree” or “flower” than to find a word that rhymes with “chlorophyll” or “chrysanthemum. ” Rhymes don’t necessarily have to be at the end of the line, either—they can also be internal, or in the middle of the line.
Haiku - consists of three lines. The first line contains five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the third has five syllables. Tanka - consists of five lines. The first three lines follow the structure of a haiku (five/seven/five), and the last two lines each have seven syllables. Lantern - a loosely-written poem meant to imitate the visual shape of a Japanese lantern. Couplet - consists of two lines that rhyme with one another. A couplet is not usually considered a poetic type, but it can be part of a poetic type. Quatrain - consists of four lines with a specific rhyme pattern. The rhyme pattern is usually one of four possible patterns: AABB (first two lines rhyme, last two lines rhyme), ABAB (first and third lines rhyme, second and fourth lines rhyme), ABBA (first and fourth lines rhyme, second and third lines rhyme), or ABCB (first three lines are all unrhymed, fourth line rhymes with the second line). [10] X Research source Quatrains are also not poetic types, but they are often used to create a specific type of poem. Limerick - consists of five lines with an AABBA rhyme scheme. These poems are supposed to be funny (and sometimes even rude).
Choose concrete words instead of abstract ones. This will make your poem stronger and more rooted in imagery, rather than in vague concepts or ideas. [11] X Research source Don’t worry about rhyming any lines unless you’ve chosen to work with a poetic form that requires a rhyme scheme. Rhyming in contemporary poetry is often seen as stuffy or old fashioned, and without proper understanding of stress/emphasis a rhymed poem could be sloppy. If you’re interested in working within poetic forms, try experimenting with different forms until you find one that works best for your theme and imagery.
Similes are comparisons that use “like” or “as”. For example, the phrase, “He’s curious as a cat,” uses the word “as” to compare a person’s curiosity to that of a cat. Metaphors are comparisons that do not use “like” or “as”, effectively pretending (for literary effect) that one thing is actually something else. For example, “Her love is a flower” compares a person’s love with a beautiful but delicate flower.
Look for any instances of cliché. Try to figure out what you were trying to say with your cliché. Describe what your cliché is trying to describe in your own original words. Re-write the cliché in a descriptive and original way. [13] X Research source
cutting away prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, and any lines that explain needlessly playing with where you place line breaks (the end/beginning of a line) within your poem reading your poem out loud and thinking about the way your poem sounds (not just rhymes, if you incorporated rhyme, but also the way words sound together) rearranging lines for emphasis, sound placement, and image placement
