Poetry from Daily Life: Write your next poem for the non-human world

This week’s guest on “Poetry from Daily Life” is Joseph Bruchac, who lives in Greenfield Center, New York. Joe has been writing since his 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Monthony, praised one of his poems. Over the years he has written in just about every genre, but poetry — especially related to nature — remains his first love. One of his favorite books to write was "Code Talker," which gave Joe the unforgettable privilege of working with actual Navajo Code Talkers while writing and researching it. A unique fact about Joseph Bruchac is that he and his wife, Nicola Marae Alain, are licensed wildlife rehabilitators. Joe says that he has petted everything from mountain lions and eagles to wild turkeys and porcupines (carefully). ~ David L. Harrison

Talking with the world

The world is always talking to us, but all too often we are just not listening. One of the things that one can do as a poet is to enter into conversation with the more than human existence which is all around us and learn from it.

There are many examples of this in famous poems over the centuries. One of my favorite early Romantic poets is William Blake (1757-1827). A visionary writer, Blake begins by addressing living being within the natural world in such works as “Ah, Sunflower” or “The Tyger” — before taking each of those poems in unexpected directions. Then there’s “To a Mouse,” by the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), spoken as an apology for the way humans — and the writer himself — often harm the natural world.

Harold Tantaquidgeon, a Mohegan elder, and one of the founders of the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum in Uncasville, Connecticut taught me something decades ago that I've never forgotten. It has been of great help to me in many ways — including in my writing.

On the outside wall of that small Tantaquidgeon museum a cross had been drawn. Within each quadrant of that cross was a black dot.

Those dots, Harold explained, stood for four things that we need to do each day.

The first is to listen. We were given two ears and only one mouth because we need to listen twice as much as we talk.

The second is to observe. Really look at the world, and everything around you with those two eyes of yours that enable you to see things in depth. Observe the large and the small and everything in between.

The third is to remember. The lessons we gain from listening and observing may be lost unless we keep them in our memory, or record them in our writing.

The fourth is to share, which completes the circle, and is the job of the teacher, the elder and the poet.

Here's a writing exercise that keeps those four steps in mind as we engage with the non-human world.

Stand or sit still and listen. Then, when you hear something, pay close attention to it. Perhaps follow that sound and identify who or what in the natural world is making it. Then write not just about what you hear and see, but address it directly.

Here, as an example, is a poem I recently wrote on one of the last warm days of autumn. I heard a buzzing sound from the flowers in the garden. I slowly stepped forward and saw it — a bumblebee.

Bumblebee, my old friend,

so busy there in that yellow dahlia

you pay no attention to me,

even when I lean forward slowly,

extend my index finger and stroke

your back, soft as the cheek of a child.

You have things to do, important things,

your life lived fully in the warm seasons

of one year, if luck is yours.

I'll step back now and leave you here

taking your lesson with me.

Since his first publication over sixty years ago in a student literary magazine at Cornell University, Joseph Bruchac’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in hundreds of magazines and anthologies. His experiences include directing a college program in a maximum security prison for eight years and three years of volunteer teaching in West Africa. He co-founded with his late wife Carol the Greenfield Review Press, a pioneer in diverse publishing. His over 180 books range from picture books and plays to poetry collections and novels. He and his two sons, James and Jesse, direct the Ndakinna Education Center on their 90-acre family nature preserve teaching outdoor awareness, indigenous survival skills, animal tracking, Native language, and martial arts.