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A basic of nature writing is the sense of place. It's also a basic of human life that is perhaps rapidly eroding. I urge students to write about place in any or all of several ways: by making a small portion of a place stand for the whole (synechdoche), by cataloguing what's there, by focusing on one or more of the senses, by narrating oneself into the picture, by stacking acrostics of the place—but ultimately the poet finds her own way to talk about what well be our most primary interaction in life: the sense of here, there.
a place called here
(excerpt)The days are stacked against what we think they are.
—Jim Harrison
stacked against what we know we are while wet flakes flower on the
hoods of red volvos and drape aspen branches like lace, we know we
were in love but the snow came too late. flouncing in on the tail of red
robes layered against dusk. at the mercy of turnings, squinting to catch
a stack of metered time rolling off slope of moon or the bridge of a
nose that reminds you who you were. your own sweating breasts
against a killing dream ...the earth stacked in favor of a bird's wings, ladder of plates
grunting their way from hell to blue. in streams water whistles
like air. dispersed falling. who we think we are. fallen ....—Shanley Rhodes
The journal is an I-remember of the present. It has always encouraged the prominence of one's surroundings and of the five or six senses. Here's one that displays a rocky compaction:
Grand Teton
(excerpts)August 1st
0300 — Dark and cold. wind blowing from the west. Very little sleep.
Shared the cave at 10,500 feet with pikas. Up, already dressed.
Headlamp on. Find Wesley and Bob. Quick breakfast—oatmeal and
coffee. No one talking. Grunts.0415 — Start down through boulders and talus. Wesley leading. Down about
1000 feet then up to the Lower Saddle. Headlamps catch pikas.
Occasional bird noises ...0600 — On the saddle between the Middle and Grand Teton—glow to the east.
Pre-dawn. Still cold. North through long boulderfield. Smells of
human shit. Exum Guides must still be dragging pack-trains of
tourists up the ridge. Purchase an experience. No one around.
Breathing hard. Look west to Idaho. Almost light now. To the
east Signal Mountain, Jackson Lake, the Snake River, Alpine Lakes ...0915 — On the summit—very small place. Only other people there two crazy
Brits—one chain-smoking. Sun beginning to warm, but not much. Take
a few pictures. Look north to Cascade Canyon and all around. Still
very clear.—Bill Campbell
