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| by Scot Siegel |
October 14, 2011
When is a poem not a nature poem?
--by Scot Siegel
A reader wrote to
me recently with a complaint. Our first! Her note was brief and went like this:
“Why do you publish so many poems by [x]? [He/She] is not a nature poet like
others in your journal.”
Fair question.
Though I had to ask: When is a poem not a
nature poem? The writers here come from all walks of life and hail from different
parts of the world. Some live in large urban centers, while others are located
in rural communities. They write from prairie, city, coast, suburb, desert,
military base, and forest, among other locales.
When is a poet a nature poet? Nature is natural only because we say so.
Nature becomes a resource when we put it to economic use. But nature resists
our efforts to control it; it shapes us as much as we shape it. Our lives
reflect our engagement with, or our turning away from, nature: Sun, Oak, Wind,
Snow influence our writing even as we are thinking of skyscraper, wheelbarrow,
asphalt, eraser. So when is a poet not a nature poet?
I am glad this
journal prompts questioning and feedback. If this topic piques your interest,
please consider submitting a guest essay when we reopen for submissions in
November. We have a new features section called “One-Acts,” which is open to
short pieces of literary criticism (e.g., one-poem reviews) and creative
non-fiction. Our first One-Act follows this letter.
Thank you for
reading, and welcome to the 2011-2012 Fall-Winter Issue of Untitled Country Review.
Warmly,
Scot Siegel
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