Eco-poetry is a style of nature poetry that is less about describing nature and more about becoming one with it. At least that’s how Flagstaff poet Pam Davenport does it. She teaches eco-poetry workshops in beautiful outdoor settings, and encourages participants to experiment with writing from the perspective of a plant, or animal, or season. Her next workshop is in September at the Arboretum at Flagstaff, which is where this week’s Poetry Friday segment was recorded.
PD: One thing I’ve always loved doing is gathering people together and we write together, especially in a place like here, where we are at The Arboretum, where we are in this incredibly beautiful and peaceful setting. But also because we can draw on each other’s creative energy. And now, I have such a lofty idea of this with this notion of eco-poetry that we can – believe it or not – I think, change our consciousness.
If you think about it, we human beings came on the scene just recently, like, maybe a minute ago if we consider all of living history. So why not put the elephants, the otters, the trees, the lettuce, you know, in the center. So, that’s one thing that’s been very helpful to me.
When I hold a workshop, we look at what other people have done and think about how they’ve done it, in writing and poetry and prose. And then there’s something really quite magical that happens when we then go outside for a period of time and we write where we have this inspiration, not only from our surroundings, but from what we’ve just been reading together and talking about. People might be drawn to express gratitude, or write from the perspective of another creature, a plant, or an animal, which could really change our thinking. My husband yesterday said to me, ‘What would the elephant story be as opposed to the hunter’s?’ And I think that’s a really interesting notion.
The poem I’m going to read today was written, actually, in California. I was talking to an oak tree, which I am more and more convinced is a very sensible thing to do. And while I was talking to “her”, I was thinking of – I sort of think of it as her sister in Flagstaff – an oak tree that is behind my home. It just sort of happened, this conversation, and I’m not saying that eco-poetry is a higher level of thinking, but it does sort of take me to a different place where I’m able to have this experience but then also go deeper into it, and it goes beyond the description.
Here is my poem, Talking to Coastal Live Oak at Sycamore Springs Thinking of Mountain Gambel Oak Back Home
Can we talk?
I wonder if my mindless chatter matters,
makes you rather not,
talk I mean. I wonder at my mindless mind
reading a sign may be you lived hundreds of years,
the number makes my works whir.
I wonder do you know I’ve sat for days
outside my door with your kin?
Can you help me and there it is, my problem, not yours,
with your curvy branches reaching more out than up,
and I a passing thought but I wonder still,
do you think my chatter mind weighs her down?
Her branches weighted with acorns weighted with fruitness
at summer’s end when steller’s jays and squirrels gather
to knock fat acorns to mossy earth will whitetail deer leave scattered seeds?
I wonder at her rising and still I try to be,
with her try to pause mind murmur
and I wonder how you hold
red-tailed hawks’ heavy homes.
Do you think we can talk,
could I hear you hear her,
has any one of us ever heard?
