Beyond the Trees:

This is, in an abstract way, a guide to writing nature/landscape poetry. 

But when one sets out to write a poem, the very deliberate action of SETTING OUT TO WRITE A POEM can be the most intimidating part of the process. Instead, try what I call “looking critically:” observing the space around you and letting the poem -- or whatever it might end up being -- take shape.

I keep a running tab of observations on my phone. These can be anything from funny things my friends say to compelling images to snippets of other texts to random phrases I like the sound of, but more often than not, they tend to be reactions to the world around me. When I want to write something, I scour through these observations looking for common threads -- as Michelangelo put it, “the statue in the stone.” 

If some facet of something has caught my attention multiple times, I’m obviously interested in it, so I should write about it! This process works particularly well when you’re trying to write about the natural world. Try these steps as a starting point:

1. Settle yourself somewhere in nature. It can be a place you frequent, or somewhere you’ve never been before, or anywhere in between. 
2. For at least a few minutes (but as long as you want!) write down your observations and impressions of the world around you. Don’t worry about making them coherent -- let alone poetic. All you need to do is take stock of your surroundings.
3. Once you feel like it, go back over these observations and look for anything to which you find yourself returning: a sound, a word, an image, a general commonality or theme. Ask yourself: Why am I paying attention to this? What made this element of my observation compelling? You can go in a lot of different directions with this analysis: word/image association, linear narrative, doing the exact opposite of what you’ve already written, etc. 
4. The final step of this exercise is not writing a poem, or even starting a draft of one (although, if you feel so inspired…). “Looking critically” doesn’t need to end with any sort of material production; it’s just a process of understanding and analyzing the ways in which you observe the world around you.

Go forth, and look--

(For reference -- an example of my own process. Note, at the very top of the page, the "I was not unhappy" that later appears in the poem March 1st!)