Your muse, inspiration, spark, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t always come to you when you want it to. Several of the sources I used throughout this list have a plethora of prompts. For more general poetry prompts for the starting poet, The Mind’s Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry by Kevin Clark is a good start. If you’re looking specifically for nature writing prompts, consider Sean Prentiss and Joe Wilkins’ Environmental and Nature Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology or John A. Murray’s Writing About Nature: A Creative Guide which both give prompts and exercises for poetry, essays, creative nonfiction and more. Below is simply a list of some writing prompts or tricks I use if I feel stuck in a creative rut.
- Keep a notebook on you at all times. If you have the ability to capture your thoughts as they come to you at any time, you’re more likely to remember them and expand on them.
- Write regularly, or at least attempt to. Many textbooks, famous writers, and writer-friends recommend trying to write once a day, and it makes sense. Think of your creativity as a muscle you have to flex. I however have never been able to keep up a journal, and tend to write in binges where I write several poems or pages over the course of only a few days, followed by a few weeks of inactivity. I tend to have to have several projects on the go so I can keep writing regularly. If the idea of having several projects going at once or journaling indefinitely is overwhelming, Murray suggests journaling daily for one season, detailing the seasonal changes from its beginning to the end. Also remember that your observations of your surroundings are just as important as your thoughts and relationships with those surroundings and others (Murray).
- Is it not serving you? Then throw it in the bin! You’re going to hear me say this over and over again when I talk about my personal poetry pet peeves and the building blocks of poetry, but here’s the TL;DR version: if something in your writing serves no purpose, ditch it. Figuring out whether something serves you or not is a whole ‘nother adventure, but we’ll work through it together.
- If music or white noise helps you concentrate, set up dedicated playlists. When I was writing my Algonquin Park poetry, I made a playlist of earthy, folksy music that reminded me of the park and nature in general. It does take away from writing for a short while, but it also is another way of thinking about the topics and themes you’re writing about and also a fun way to discover new music.
- Poetry Foundation is your friend. Poetry Foundation is an online poetry database you can access for free. It contains seemingly endless content beyond that of poems. There’s also poet bios, a glossary of poetic terms, essays on different poets/poems, recordings of poets reading their own work, curated collections of poems organized by theme or genre, and more! You can even search for specific poems or poets by poetic movement, region, type of poem, etc. Poetry Foundation can be an effective tool to discover new ways of using and thinking about poetry through reading other poets, but can also introduce you to poetic forms and ideas you wouldn’t have thought of.
- Wikipedia and Google deep dives can lead you do a poem. Type in a topic, idea, or even “list of _____” into either Wiki or Google and just go down the rabbit hole. Just like with reading through Poetry Foundation, you’ll find topics and ways of structuring poetry you wouldn’t even have thought of.
- Read poets/poems from a poetic movement or of forms you’re unfamiliar with. While on Poetry Foundation, you may have noticed a long list of different poetic movements and forms organized by time period or by verse or stanza form, meter, technique or type. What was the Harlem Renaissance or what is Language Poetry? What is a pantoum, an ars poetica, or terza rima? Only one way to find out. Try writing something inspired by a historic poetic movement or using a stanza form or poetic technique you’re not as familiar with. When I’m stuck on keeping it fresh, I like to use this article called “List of 100 Poetic Forms for Poets” by Robert Lee Brewer on the Writer’s Digest site.
- Having trouble making an idea come out on the page? Mix up your usual way of writing. This could mean switching from writing in a notepad to typing on a laptop, moving location to write somewhere new, working on a different project for a while, or try writing your idea in a different poetic form. Most modern poets I’ve run into write in free verse (poetry without consistent metre, rhyme or any musical pattern) (Abbs and Richardson), and while free verse has the benefit of mimicking how people actually speak, sometimes having a form to wrap a nebulous idea around sharpens your focus on what you want to talk about. Speaking of which…
- Restrictions can free you. I find this especially true when I want to write experimental poetry. In art, there’s this openness where you can write in any way, on any topic, with whatever words you like, but just like when your mind freezes at a fast food drive-thru staring at all the options, it can sometimes be overwhelming the choices you have available to you. Take a step back and narrow your focus, whether that’s creating a poem using only words found in a Buzzfeed article or pulling a Dr. Seuss (Google “Green Eggs and Ham bet”) is up to you, but by pointedly restricting yourself, you gain a new focus and likely it will help you write in a way that creates fresh images.
- Go for a walk, bring a notepad, and turn off your phone’s Wi-fi. Consider this a call to do a little meditation sans the “ohms” and sitting uncomfortably. I like to take a blanket and make a picnic out of this type of writing excursion, even if it’s only to the city park. Taking a deep breath and just allowing your thoughts to wander could take you on a journey of inspiration, and with nothing else in front of you but your notepad, you may feel more compelled to write.
- Next time you go outside, write in list form the thoughts you have and the sensations you feel. Don’t worry about turning it into a cohesive story or poem, just write about your five senses, your feelings, and your thoughts as they come to you. After you walk/ride/bike outside, return to that list. The list as a whole or one individual item could become the inspiration for a poem. This is what I call “sight-writing.”
- Think of a feeling. Now write a paragraph/short poem using only images to capture that feeling. In a lot of poetry textbooks, you’ll read about the idea of abstraction vs. image with image being the massively preferred way to write poetry. While abstraction can be important in more philosophical discussions, your focus in writing poetry or prose should be to connect and relate more fully with your reader on an emotional level. As the Mind’s Eye says: “most abstractions are poetic quicksand; they aren’t registered in the gut” (Clark), and a unique image simulating what it feels like to be in love will stick with a reader longer than simply saying “love.” This is that classic “show don’t tell” adage taken to its logical extreme.
- Now that you know about turning abstractions into image, use those images to write an argument with those images as evidence. I can’t claim this one as my own idea. Prentiss and Wilkins use the example of “writing a poem that simply describes the savagery of mountaintop removal mining. Here the images of the hollowed, shellacked region might suggest a moral and political argument: mountaintop removal is unbeautiful and wrong, and we should do something about it” (Prentiss and Wilkins).
- Consider how to bring together opposite themes or the “high” and “low.” Whether or not you like electronic remixes of classical music, there’s something intriguing about bringing together such conflicting styles. Bring together philosophy and potty humour, metered sonnets and crude puns, and see what emerges.
- Nothing is as boring as you think. Most of my early writings were spent on fantasy prose because I thought that if it was possible for me to experience it, it was just boring, and that’s not necessarily true. When I started writing about my Algonquin camping adventures with my family, I didn’t think people would be just as interested in my family dynamics as they were my descriptions of nature.
- Tell a story. Try to put rhythm to a memory you have within nature, adding a musical quality to a story can make it more memorable.
- Think about those who don’t usually read poetry. Neither of my parents are readers, but when writing about my family’s experiences in Algonquin Park, I wanted to make sure there was something they could relate to in the collection. By considering what isn’t usual for poetry, you’re more likely to come up with fresh images and (hopefully) convert more people to poetry.
- Work towards balance in your writing. Few aspects of life are all negative or all positive. It’ll add realism to your idyllic nature poem is you also discuss the burn in your calf muscles as you walked up the hill to the vista.
- Study the historical inheritance of the land you’re writing about. Algonquin Park for example was established in 1893 but was heavily logged beforehand as explained in the Big Pines’ Trail interpretive guidebook or within Glimpses of Algonquin Thirty Personal Impressions from Earliest Times to the Present complied by G. D. Garland. Those don’t even get into the original residents of the land and the long and complicated history between them and colonists. Try to research as much as you can and tread carefully when portraying experiences of persons with whom you do not share inheritance.
- Think about how your own identity may affect your experience with nature. Like many other areas of art, nature writing has been traditionally led by white, straight, cis-gendered men. There is nothing wrong with this perspective, but a diversity of opinion and experiences adds depth and variety to the genre and hopefully to your own writing if you seek out to read POC, indigenous, or queer writers. In my own experience there’s many aspects of camping that change with me being a woman versus my father’s experience, and that’s not limited to ease of going to the bathroom (bathroom? Forget a bath or a room!) in The Great Outdoors, but the main point of this tip is to encourage deep self-reflection and empathy for others.
- Become inspired by the little things, whether that’s within nature or words. Watching a startled mother duck lead her brood of ducklings away from you into the Thames can be just as inspiring as watching a bull moose clear a highway in two strides of its long legs. Equally, discovering the musicality or definition of new words can stir the imagination just as much as a sonnet from a great wordsmith. I subscribe to Dictionary.com’s “Word of the Day” to get a different, obscure word each day, and at least once a month, I come across a word that rolls across my tongue in a new and interesting way.
- Remember the names you repeatedly come across when reading nature writing like Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, or William Wordsworth. How has the discourse around the environment and other socio-political factors changed since they wrote their similar works? Write a letter/poem/whatever-floats-your-boat to/for/against them.
- Think of a specific plant or animal and keep it simple. I’m talking a moth, weed, flower or tree. Do research on it, learn everything you can, discover its unique quirks, write an ode (a poem that addresses a subject with a degree of elaborateness, elevation, or ceremony) (Adams) to it.
- Remember that specific plant or animal you did all that research on? Now de-familiarize yourself. Write about it as if you’re either an alien from outer space experiencing it for the first time or trying to explain it to that alien. For example, think about grass. It’s something almost everybody knows about, it’s a part of your life whether you live in the suburbs or see it growing through the cracks of sidewalks in the city. Or think about rain, or thunder and lightning. How would you try to comfort your new alien friend and help them understand why we keep around such a pervasive weed or why the sky is shouting?
- Now that you’ve learned the ins and outs of an animal or plant, now become it. Write from the perspective of this piece of flora or fauna, and make sure to be specific in location, time of year, stage of life it’s in, etc.
- Write a poem that not only uses images from nature, but use the words themselves to try to simulate nature. At their base, words are just random conglomerations of sounds, use them wisely. Think about how to use “the sibilant ‘s’ to replicate the whispering sounds of the wind in the leaves; a pattern of open ‘e’ and ‘ou’ sounds to reproduce the modulations of the waves, and the simple five beat iambic (unstressed/stressed syllable units) line to convey the musical rhythms of wild nature” (Murray). More about prosody and metre below in the “So…how do I even write good?” chapter.
- Write about nature as its own character. Reflect not only how you personally interact with nature, but how it makes you feel, what kind of impression it leaves on you, etc. Returning to Prentiss and Wilkins, they talk about treating place as a backdrop versus as a character. Setting should be dynamic and complex, asserting just as much influence on the human and animal characters in your story as they do on each other. It’s important to think about how “place changes through time; how it affects a person or a community or group of communities; and how it exerts physical, emotional, and psychological forces on us, on our stories, and on our readers.” (Prentiss and Wilkins)
- Ponder on the characterization of Mother Nature and/or The Great Outdoors as a whole. Mother Nature is neither solely a nurturing mother nor vengeful goddess as she is often portrayed. Taking into account you own experiences of nature, how would you go about personifying it? Keep in mind that though this is a fun experiment for writing purposes, framing the forces of nature into a human mold can have dire consequences while dealing with nature face to face.
- Bring science into poetry. The clinical, almost cold language used in more scientific descriptions of nature could rub up against the more flowing, flowery language of poetry or the more vernacular diction of prose in interesting ways.
- Consider the “dark side” of nature. A lot of nature writing looks at the idyllic side of nature or the aspects that need saving due to human interference. These are of course important aspects to celebrate, but I don’t as often see poems discussing evasive species like the Round Goby in the Great Lakes, the Emerald Ash Borer across North America, or the Kudzu plant prominent in the southern half of the United States and other places around the world. This isn’t even touching on absolutely nasty flora and fauna like Cymothoa exigua, a sea louse that makes its home in a fish’s mouth, feeding on the fish’s blood and tongue until that organ withers way; the loa loa, a worm that infects humans through fly bites and an eventually travels through the body’s tissue for years, causing itching, swelling, and even brain damage; or the Sacculina, a barnacle that infiltrates and manipulates a crab’s reproductive system to use as their own (Barrie). These creatures are as fascinating as they are horrifying, and certainly capable of inspiring the right writer.
- I’ve talked about considering the “dark side” of nature as well as finding balance in describing nature, but don’t be afraid to look at the dark side of yourself. Nature can not only inspire awe and happiness, but anger, fear, frustration and selfishness. Explore this deeper, more primal part of yourself while within nature: your urge to curse as you trip over yet another root, to leave a slow, complaining fellow hiker behind, to keep a hatchet under your pillow as the lack of sky pollution leaves your nights in an utter void of darkness. Reflect on how nature brings these negative aspects out of yourself in your words.
- While exploring your own personal struggles against nature as you hike, think about how humanity has struggled against nature. While it feels like we mostly dominate nature in our modern times with machines, chemicals and science, cities can be decimated by a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami. The “man vs. nature” conflict is a basic narrative device, but contemplate on how society has evolved to battle, dominate, understand, save, and harmonize with nature.
- Big into horror movies set in nature? I want to be, but I often find them more frustrating than scary as the characters get themselves lost, injured, or hoodwinked by some ancient evil through flat characterization and stupidity. “Ooo, let’s take shortcut in an area we’re not familiar with.” Boo, I immediately lose sympathy for these fictional characters and feel immense frustration and sadness when real-life nature horror stories pop up. I’d love to see a horror movie, book, whatever, that shows a character displaying proper survival skills and intelligence. Are you up for the challenge?
- Reflect on your achievements and growth with nature. I don’t like to think about myself “dominating” or “conquering” nature whenever I climb a particularly tall and steep hill or finish a strenuous, overnight trail, but my competitive edge often gets the best of me. I’ve gone from riding in a large red backpack strapped to one of my parents to walking over 30 km in two days, learning skills necessary to spend those days with some comfort is something I celebrate. Think about how your opinions of your own abilities within nature have changed as you’ve grown as a person.
- Think local and personal. While most people know what a tree is, even if they live in areas too hot or cold to accommodate such flora, simply mentioning a tree in your story or poem isn’t enough. What species? What colour and shape are the leaves? What impression does the tree leaf (ba-dum-tiss) on you? Is it big and full of knots in its trunk? Is it small and look like a stiff breeze could uproot it? Does its wood look dry and riddled with pockmarks from woodpeckers or beetles? We want to know! This should apply to all aspects of your writing, write what you feel most about and research what is being done for or to your local environment for better or for worse. Your personal connection to the subject will speak to your audience.
- You get to define what nature is to you. Not everyone has the privilege to travel to and pay for reservations in a provincial park or the ability to hike rugged, remote trails. Writing an ode to the Aloe Vera you grew from a sprout or people-watching in a city park can be the inspiration of an invigorating story or poem in the right hands.
- No camping experience is the same and all styles of camping are just as valid. Some people go to a drive-in campground, crack a cold one and never leave their canvas chairs. Others walk 15 km a day and sleep on the ground with only the open sky as their ceiling. These are both vastly different ways to experience nature, and the more experiences you have, the more ways you can write on nature.
- A hike is not a race. This is good hiking and writing advice. Take time, walk softly (not too softly so you surprise a bear), let the susurrus of the breeze blowing through the leaves and your breathing fall into rhythm, and nature will open up for you. I take a lot of pictures when I hike the interpretive trails off the Hwy 60 corridor of Algonquin Park, and my mom’s a slow walker. We seem to spot a lot more wildlife and interesting plants than my Dad and younger sister, who hike trails like they’re trying to win a cash prize.
- Think about aspects of camping other than nature. Campfire cooking, going to the beach, setting up the tent, how/when you wake up compared to back home, even the experience of going to the restroom in a vaulted toilet (aka an outhouse) or no toilet at all can be a novel experience to people who have less chances of going camping as you may have.
- Technology is now an inevitability of camping. We are not John Muir, Madhaviah Krishnan, or Susan Fenimore Cooper and we should not pretend to be. Whether you’re using a GPS navigation system as a thru-hiker or whipping out a Bluetooth speaker to listen to your favourite summer jams at a drive-in campsite, the technology we use to keep us entertained, comfortable or safe is worth a mention in your nature writing to add realism and a time setting to your work.
- Just as much thought should go into your choice of clothing as you do with your big ticket items like tents or overnight backpacks. Speaking from experience, your choice of clothing can make or break a trip. I’ve learned that how mosquitos can bite through spandex tights, how heavy hiking books can be when wearing them for the first time, how quickly clothing comes off when you see a tranquil, clear lake. Just as with the different technology you bring to add comfort and security to your trip, think about how the quality and type of clothing or equipment you bring affects your experience
- Consider the sensations involved when pushing your body to the limit while hiking, swimming, going on a long bike ride through the woods, etc. I often feel more connected to my body within nature because I feel more reliant on it, more a part of me when I’m working it hard physically as opposed to when I’m sedentary, when it feels more like a simple vessel for my mind. Think of your ragged breaths, a single droplet of sweat sliding from the hallow of your spine, the slight sting of an immerging sunburn, the swelling of fingers after carrying of a heavy backpack all day, and how these sensations affect your overall experience between your body, mind, and nature.
- Keep any and all textual material you get while at a park. Whether that be writing down names of streets or towns you pass, keeping receipts and informational brochures about the park, or collections of scary stories. For the RPG players out there, these are the “flavour texts” of camping. Think of ways you can incorporate aspects of them into your writing or try your hand at experimental writings such as found poetry or blackout poetry with them as your primary texts. (Note: found poetry is when you use a text not originally yours and re-contextualize it through various ways to create something new and blackout poetry is taking a text that is not yours and taking out some words and leaving others to make new sentences.)
- Collect small pieces of nature to study. Of course do it ethically. Pick up stones, hold fallen sticks in your hands, run your fingers through grass. Never pick something that is alive. Hyper-analyze these things with as many senses as are safe (don’t go licking a cactus and tell people I told you to, please).
- A piece of advice from my little sister: track the scat. This is another way of saying to watch your feet while you’re hiking. Whenever my family hiked backcountry trails in early July, there was always what felt like hundreds of tiny toads hopping about, nearly blending in with the trail, some nearly as small as your thumbprint. Less common, but still prevalent on trail is the aforementioned scat, and even if you don’t know deer pellets from bear plops you can tell a lot about an animal by their leavings: how healthy they are, what they ate, how big they are, and most importantly how close they are to you. Work out a story to follow this animal’s journey as you imagine it, scat knowledge or no.
- Being a writer already makes you a multi-disciplinarian. Use that to your advantage. Throughout these prompts I ask you to consider putting on a lot of hats: historian, philosopher, activist, and more, and you’ll need all these tools to be the best writer you can be. If you’re already a writer, you show yourself to be a creative soul and probably have other artistic interests. Use these other art forms in tandem with your writing (literally or figuratively) to enhance your understanding of how you go about writing. Are you a musician? Think about how sound and rhythm affects how words sound on the page. Like snapping photos? Consider how you can best frame a scene you’re writing about. Like watercolour painting? Think about how light and shadow can be used to make a more dynamic piece. Every experience, no matter how mundane or obscure can make you a better writer.
- Having a hard time writing new material about a familiar place? Bring along a friend, especially a friend new to the area. Compare their impressions against your own.
- While you’re experiencing nature with that friend, ask them what they would like to see written. They may not be able to answer right away, but a good friend (whether they are an artist themselves or not) will likely engage you in a conversation that could brighten that lightbulb you need.
- Out of ideas? Try to come at inspiration sideways. If reading poems, stories, or essays in your genre or researching different poetic movements or structure isn’t doing it for you, try writing your own writing prompts or make a mock poetry workshop. Either way, it’s a win-win situation you can return to later.
- Have fun! It’s a cliché thing to say, but though not all of these prompts are ordered in the order I originally thought of them, I did think of this one last, despite how simple it is. Remember to write about what speaks to you personally, what makes you want to keep writing, and hold onto those parts of nature that keep you coming back. Grow and expand your horizons through study and research not just to meet an end, but because you are genuinely intrigued and fascinated by the things you’re reading.
Works Cited
Abbs, Peter and John Richardson. “The Forms of Poetry : A Practical Study Guide for English.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 137. Print.
Adams, Stephen. Poetic designs: an introduction to meters, verse forms, and figures of speech. Peterborough: Broadview Press Ltd, 1997. Print.
Clark, Kevin. The mind’s eye: a guide to writing poetry. United States: Pearson Education, Inc., 2008. Print.
Murray, John. A. Writing about nature: a creative guide revised edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003. Print.
Prentiss, Sean and Joe Wilkins. Environmental and Nature Writing A Writer’s Guide and Anthology. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Print.
Barrie, Nell. “10 deadly parasites.” 22 May 2019. Sciencefocus. Web. 22 June 2020.