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Emily Dickinson

See Dickinson biographical information at Nature, Beauty, Power: The Romantics.


Her complete poems (Johnson edition) are available here and listed by poem number. Here are several good nature poems: #130 These are the Days the Birds come back; #214 I taste a liquor never brewed; #328 A Bird came down the walk; # 722 Sweet Mountains, ye tell me no lies; # 627 The Tint I cannot take--is best; #754 My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun.


Joy Harjo

Harjo biography (1); another Harjo biography (2); read these poems: Eagle Poem, She had some horses, and September Moon.


Harjo biography (3) and link to two poems (Deer Dancer; Equinox). A poem: Perhaps the World Ends Here. A site dedicated to Harjo--with several poems.


Many more Harjo poems listed in this Index--scroll down and click titles under Harjo's name; half dozen prose poems also. Also about a dozen prose poems accompanying Canyon de Chelly paintings by Stephen Strom.


Denise Levertov

Levertov biography/scholarly commentry on her poems, plus 3 poems (Talking to Grief; September 1961; In Mind). Here is a short Levertov biography with links to 10 poems; 11 poems; 46 poems. See also Living While It May ; September 1961; Losing Track; What Were They Like.


Some Notes on Organic Form--Levertov's essay.


A number of Levertov texts set to music: Toward a Time of Renewal.


Selected Ecofeminist Poems: The Fountain; Song for Ishtar; (or Song for Ishtar [2]);  Come into Animal Presence (or Come into Animal Presences [2]); An Embroidery; To the Snake (or To the Snake [2]); To the Reader; I believe the earth; O Taste and See.

See also the two poems reprinted below: The Goddess; Cancion.

The Goddess

She in whose lipservice

I passed my time,

whose name I knew, but not her face,

came upon me where I lay in Lie Castle!

Flung me across the room, and

room after room (hitting the walls, re-

bounding--to the last

sticky wall--wrenching away from it

pulled hair out!)

till I lay

outside the outer walls!

There in cold air

lying still where her hand had thrown me,

I tasted the mud that splattered my lips:

the seeds of a forest were in it,

asleep and growing!  I tasted

her power!

The silence was answering my silence,

a forest was pushing itself

out of sleep between my submerged fingers.

I bit on a seed and it spoke on my tongue

of day that shone already among stars

in the water-mirror of low ground,

and a wind rising ruffled the lights:

she passed near me returning from the encounter,

she who plucked me from the close rooms,

without whom nothing

flowers, fruits, sleeps in season,

without whom nothing

speaks in its own tongue, but returns

lie for lie!


Cancion

When I am the sky

a glittering bird

slashes at me with the knives of song.

When I am the sea

fiery clouds plunge into my mirrors,

fracture my smooth breath with crimson sobbing.

When I am the earth

I feel my flesh of rock wearing down:

pebbles, grit, finest dut, nothing.

When I am a woman--O, when I am

a woman,

my wells of salt brim and brim,

poems force the lock of my throat.


Pat Mora

Mora biography (1); another Mora biography (2); and another Mora biography (3). Here are some helpful Study Notes.


Poems:Elena--PDF file; Mangos y limones; Señora X No More;  In the Blood; La Migra; Crossing Borders:  Journeys in Spirit--transcription of Mora's comments at a poetry reading (?); includes poems "Elena" and "Border Town: 1938."


Selected Ecofeminist Poems: Mi Madre; Unrefined; Silence like a Cool Sand; Legal Alien (another Legal Alien (2)). "Curandera" and "Our Lady of Guadalupe"; Curandera (with commentary). (Alternate copies: Curandera (3) and Our Lady of Guadelupe (2)). For more on the Guadalupe topic, see the Tonantzin/Guadalupe section on my Ecofeminist web page. Read the "Personal Critique" (scroll down the page to Agua Santa/Holy Water) for a short analysis of images of women/goddesses in Mora's writing. Here is Coatlicue´s Rules: Advice from an Aztec Goddess;

See also the two poems reprinted below: For Georgia O'Keefe and Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge.

For Georgia O'Keefe

I want

to walk,

with you

on my Texas desert,

to stand near

you straight

as a Spanish Dagger,

to see your fingers

pick a bone bouquet

touching life

where I touch death

to hold a warm, white

pelvis up

to the glaring sun

and see

your red-blue worls

to feel you touch

my eyes as you touch canvas

to unfold

giant blooms.



Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge

if the earth's old bones smile


I hear them

in the hush of this greenless forest

shining up to the gray clump of salt cedar


to black swords of mesquite
to the grace of grasses, yellow, rust

if the earth's old bones smile


I hear them shining

to strange chirps and clatters

to strange birds with necks that flow and flow

Canadian geese, sandhill cranes

stirring the air, stirring the air


if the earth's old bones smile


I hear them shining

in pools, in the mallard's green shimmer

in the startled FLAP

filling the blue with a whirl white


silent, vast


then dip of black tip


snow geese, snow geese


if the earth's old bones smile

I hear them

shining in the white of the majestic crane

the great Whoop

white neck flowing, flowing

into desert grasses

white flowing

into the smile of old bones.


Nora Naranjo-Morse, sculptor-poet

Nora Naranjo-Morse--biography/links


Naranjo's Mudwoman Poems:


More information on Narango-Morse (including artwork) at my Art Tours page.


Mary Oliver

Oliver biography.


Poems: Wild Geese; A Visitor; Morning Poem; Peonies; The Mockingbirds; Sleeping in the Forest; Climbing the Chagrin River; The Journey; Poppies. (Alternate sources: Same poems (1) (plus The Swan) and same poems (2) (plus The Sun); links to 52 poems.)


More Poems: Mockingbirds; The Buddha's Last Instruction; The Summer Day; Moccasin Flowers; Wild Geese; When Death Comes; The Journey. Many Poems--mostly complete texts, but a few may be excerpts. When Death Comes; Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith; Poem [The spirit Likes to Dress Up].


Short review of her book. Scholarly comments (excerpts) on her poetry.


The Humpbacks--my favorite eco-poem, although most of the lines should be flush left.

See also the two poems reprinted below: Happiness and The Honey Tree. (Also see this related poem Honey at the Table.)

Happiness

In afternoon I watched

the she-bear; she was looking

For the secret bin of sweetness--

honey, that the bees store

in the trees' soft caves.

Black block of gloom, she climbed down

tree after tree and shuffled on

through the woods. And then

she found it! The honey-house deep

as heartwood, and dipped into it

among the swarming bees--honey and comb

she lipped and tongued and scooped out

in her black nails, until

maybe she grew full, or sleepy, or maybe

a little drunk, and sticky

down the rugs of her arms,

and began to hum and sway.

I saw her let go of the branches,

I saw her lift her honeyed muzzle

into the leaves, and her thick arms,

as though she would fly--

an enormous bee

all sweetness and wings--

down into the meadows, the perfection

of honeysuckle and roses and clover--

to float and sleep in the sheer nets

swaying from flower to flower

day after shining day.


The Honey Tree

And so at last I climbed

the honey tree, ate

the bodies of bees that could not

get out of my way, ate

the dark hair of the leaves,

the rippling bark,

the heartwood. Such

frenzy! But joy does that,

I'm told, in the beginning.

Later, maybe,

I'll come here only

sometimes and with a

middling hunger. But now

I climb like a snake,

I clamber like a bear to

the nuzzling place, to the light

salvaged by the thighs

of bees and racked up

in the body of the tree.

Oh, anyone can see

how I love myself at last!

how I love the world! climbing

by day or night

in the wind, in the leaves, kneeling

at the secret rip, the cords

of my body stretching

and singing in the

heaven of appetite


Simon Ortiz

Read these poems: Canyon de Chelly; A Designated National Park; It Was that Indian; Starting at the Bottom. Ortiz Index--many more poems listed here;scroll down to Ortiz's name.


Here is a student essay on Ortiz's use of the Coyote figure in his poetry. For more information on Native American trickster figures, see my Native American Trickster Tales web page.


Pattiann Rogers

Rogers biography/links/poems (Counting What the Cactus Contains; Nearing Autobiography). Opus from Space; Dream of the Marsh Wren; The Family Is All; The Hummingbird. Another Roger's poem: Animals and People: Human Heart in Conflict with Itself. More great poems: Geocentric; Rolling Naked.


Two Rogers poems--"Idée Fixe" and "Sensual Deprivation." Two more Rogers poems--"Fossil Texts on Canyon Walls" and "The Defining Point."


Herndon's Book Review of Firekeeper--short introduction to important collection of poems by Roger.


Gary Snyder

Ecotopia Biography; Snyder biography; Short Snyder biography.


Poems: Riprap; Milton by Firelight; Smokey the Bear Sutra; "Riprap" and "This Poem is for Bear"; How Poetry Comes to Me; Axe Handles; Hay For The Horses; For All; Old Bones; John Muir on Mt. Ritter; Rolling in at Twilight;  On Top; What You Should Know to be a Poet;  How to Make Stew in the Pinacate Desert: Recipe for Locke & Drum; Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout--scroll down the page; Piute Creek;  Soy Sauce; Magpie's Song; "Toji" Shington temple, Kyoto; Why I Take Good Care of my Macintosh; Covers the Ground. In a Dark Time . . .the Eye Begins to See--comments on Snyder's later poetry; includes complete texts of "Call of the Wild"; "The Canyon Wren"; "The Bear Mother"; and "Afloat." See also: 9 Poems; 30 Poems; 2 Poems; 9 Snyder poems.


Essays by Snyder: Unnatural Writing--Snyder essay from A Place in Space; selection from A Place in Space; Buddhist Anarchism--essay by Snyder; another Snyder essay:  Early Green Thinking.


Scholarly Criticism: Gary Snyder, Dôgen, and "The Canyon Wren"--scholarly article.  See also: Response to Gary Snyder, Dôgen, and The Canyon Wren. Read Poem as Work-Place: GS's Ecological Poetics--scholarly article about Snyder's poetry. Singing The Dyads: The Chinese Landscape Scroll and Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End--Hunt's scholarly article. Scholarly Criticism (excerpts and full articles) on his poems.


Use Snyder's Points for a `New Nature Poetics (scroll down the screen to find it) as criteria for evaluating how eco-conscious nature poetry is. This short commentary on Basic materials for a Counterculture is helpful.  See also Questions for Reading and Discussion.



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Updated: 4-25-13