Christina Murphy examines what environmental poetry entails, and what collections you should be reading this spring.
Environmental poetry has always been at the heart of humanity and social justice. It peaked during the romantic era, where poets like Yeats, Shelley, and Wordsworth became enamoured with the world around them. It has since flourished into an ever growing and expanding genre, including works from all over the world that use natural elements to provide an on-going commentary into social and ecological issues that need our attention. Poetry offers a chance to introduce readers to a genre that remains relatively niche, and what better time to take up environmental poetry than right now?
One of the most read poems last year that also concerns itself with environmental imagery and issues is “I Went Out to See All The Downed Trees” by Sasha Debevec-McKenney. This poem received the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize - an annual award for the best poem published in The Poetry Review written by a poet who doesn’t yet have a full collection.
In an interview with the Poetry Society, Sasha revealed that, “I wrote the poem after walking around after a bad storm during the summer of 2022, in Madison, Wisconsin. I have such a love/hate relationship with the city because it is verrrry white, but it’s also where most of my friends live. It is an idyllic place between two lakes where many people don’t have a backbone.” It was inspired by an environment the poet deemed needed a transformation, and a storm which inevitably causes change. It deals with both nature and urbanisation, and the poem utilises imagery of nature while also providing a witty but relevant commentary on modern day issues.
The poem references the presidential election of Biden, and the author is clearly in a state of distress and disappointment over the results. As a black woman, history of oppression and racism play a factor into the writing she produces, and helps funnel her emotions into poetry. This work discusses being a part of a community she doesn’t wish to be, using the natural environment as her stage.
When it comes to poetry collections, a personal favourite will always be Ocean Vuong. He is a Vietnamese-American poet, who recently published a collection of poetry titled Time Is a Mother in 2022. In the midst of quarantine and returning to life, poetry provided an outlet for both reader and writer to express themselves through. Vuong’s work was no exception to this as he explored the overlap of trauma and nature in his poems, using descriptive imagery of nature in contrast with man-made creations to demonstrate a sense of imbalance.
Vuong’s work was no exception to this as he explored the overlap of trauma and nature in his poems, using descriptive imagery of nature in contrast with man-made creations to demonstrate a sense of imbalance.
The fact that he is an immigrant who was raised in a working class household shapes a lot of his poetry. It often acts as a backdrop for a commentary on either personal or social issues. There is also a focus on intergenerational trauma from the Vietnam war which is explored in his writing. His collection Time Is a Mother uses natural imagery to explore this trauma and loss in a profound and touching manner.
Another collection of environmental poetry that has become popular over the last year is "The Hurting Kind" by Ada Limón. Like Vuong, Limón explores loss and grief alongside nature. She utilises ecological interconnection, which is a web of relationships between living things and their environment, and how in times of loss it is important for humanity to reconnect with their natural world.
Her writing walks the delicate line between pessimistic and optimistic. Being written during a pandemic and post-pandemic era, it was clear through her writing the hopelessness that can be felt when hearing the news and seeing the sickness. But her overall message that humanity will prevail and that connection with each other and nature can be sought despite all the bad things that are happening creates a more happy atmosphere.
Other collections to keep your eyes on include “Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority” (2025), a collection of poems put together by Karen McCarthy Woolf and Mona Arshi that focuses on environmentalism (the ideology focused on protecting, preserving, and restoring the natural world and its habitats) and “M Archive: After the End of the World” (2024) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. The latter is a unique presentation of poetry, structured across its pages to appear as poetic artifacts describing and documenting a Black life following a worldwide disaster.
When considering the genre of environmental poetry, something that focuses on the relationship we share with the natural world, it's hard to pinpoint it to a certain number of poems that stand out. Nature and the world around us is one of the defining factors in nearly every poem you will read, as poets love to reflect on life. Art imitates life, and life imitates art, as the saying goes. As the season of change approaches, hopefully some of these collections I have briefly talked about might open your eyes to a new genre of ecological conscience and environmental justice as we too try to navigate a world that is always shifting.