Forest Haiku

 

Two of my haiku were published in a fine line Spring 2021, the magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society. 

About haiku 

Maybe you learned to write haiku at school and were told haiku were poems of three lines with 5 -7 -5 syllables. Today haiku can be 2 or 3 lines and are almost always less than 17 syllables. Haiku use strong images to convey the essence of a moment in nature.

Notes: Krummholz is a word that English language has borrowed from German to mean a tree that is stunted, bent or twisted. It wasn't that easy finding photos that were an exact match, as these haiku were written about moments of seeing that weren't necessarily captured by a camera.

Find out more about writing haiku

This is written as a guide for teachers, but is useful for anyone considering writing haiku, especially the definition and explanation of haiku on page 3:

https://poetrysocietynz.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/learning-to-write-haiku-a-teachers-guide-k-raine.pdf

Citizen Science Inspired Poetry

Beachcombers, Pukerua Bay

Kids Writing About Nature - and some tips for parents

Last year I ran some writing workshops with local children for Porirua Harbour Trust. I introduced the children to the idea of writing poems that could take on the shape of what they are writing about.
Here are some of their Raindrop poems:

From "The Current 2" Porirua Harbour Trust 2019

This kind of poetry is called Concrete Poetry.  It doesn't have to have a line around it, the words can be placed to make the shape, like this:

A concrete poem about a pied stilt

Getting a Nature Fix: reading about nature

Reading about nature can't replace the experience of exploring and discovering in nature, but it certainly can enhance it, helping us to better understand what we are seeing or to look more closely at details. Earlier this year, for example, I reviewed two excellent books on New Zealand birds and reptiles that added substantially to the knowledge I've gained from volunteer field work.

My own books will, I hope, open children's eyes to what they see in their gardens, parks and at the beach, although on the whole I'd prefer that they spend more time in nature than poring over my books! When I started writing there were relatively few factual books for young children about nature, and despite New Zealand being a country in which most people have contact with nature, there are relatively few nature books for adults that go beyond glossy photos or field guides.

UK bookshop - just one of the many shelves devoted to Nature Writing

The Nature Bookshelf - what I'm reading

Location is a key element of most nature writing. Terrain and climate determine the plants and animals that live there. Place plays a role, too, in how people experience and interact with nature.

Some places are universal 'hot' topics - the polar regions, Galapagos Islands, Himalayan mountains. Others will only ever attract a smaller, domestic readership. Yet these works record a place, time, and depict nature in ways that other media cannot. These local books deserve a wide readership, but sadly I think in New Zealand this readership is diminishing. Fewer people seem to know what local books are available or where to buy them, turning to Amazon or Book Depository for their reading material, rather than local outlets such as publishers' websites or bookshops. Some books remain in print such a short time that I have to resort to borrowing from the library or haunting second-hand bookshops to search them out.

Here's a few local books I've been reading, both deserve to be better known.

Tales from Abel Tasman National Park

 The obscure title People Came Later doesn't do justice to this delightful book about the Abel Tasman National Park by Perrine Moncrieff. Years before the National Park was formed Perrine and her family built a bach in a bay across from Adele Island. The chapters range from amusing anecdotes about people and boats, through to more serious topics such as the arrival of stoats and the demise of the penguin population.

Perrine was a mover and shaker. She was instrumental in saving forest from being logged and birds from being indiscriminately shot. She campaigned for the formation of Abel Tasman National Park. Shortly after I'd finished reading it, I was lucky enough to be taken to Adele Island and could see for myself the places that she wrote about. It's very different now, the few seals on the island were far outnumbered by the kayakers and tour boats.

I had to source this book from the library as it is long out of

Create Your Own Nature Journal - for children

Creating a Nature Journal about a walk or trip is a great way to share your memories about the place you visited. You can use a bought notebook or make your own booklet (see how below).

Observing nature on holiday

Take your Nature Journal with you to make notes or draw sketches and then finish it when you get home. Use drawings or photos to illustrate what you saw.

Four pages recording a West Coast walk in autumn

Tips for what to write and draw

What I’m Reading - Summer 2018

Where Song Began: Australia's birds and how they changed the world by Tim Low

Who’d have thought a non-fiction book on birds would be a page-turner! Turns out this one is. Tim Low has a pacy style of writing, and he’s not shy about putting forward his opinions. It’s great to find serious non-fiction with a popular pull. The last book I read like this was The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohleben, a best-seller around the world but with a definite Northern Hemisphere focus. Putting Australian birds at the centre of the bird world might not be popular in the Northern Hemisphere, but for a fellow antipodean this was refreshing. I loved the scope of this book, starting with the intriguing business of sugar feeding birds, the book spanned bird evolution, ecology, and conservation issues. I was left gasping for breath at the end.  There are plenty of mentions of New Zealand birds and those interested in finding out more would find a good companion read in be recently revised Ghosts of Gondwana by George Gibbs.  There are a few photos in the book but those not familiar with Australian birds might be disappointed there aren’t more. Still it’s easy to look up birds in a field guide or App as you read along. I’ll definitely be packing this book on my next trip to Australia, it’ll be a perfect re-read while I’m listening to raucous cockatoos and honeyeaters.

The Fly Trap by Frederick Sjoberg

Lent to me by a friend, this pleasant read is proof even hover flies can be interesting. It seems insect collectors are contemplative people noticers and what better place than a Swedish island. His contemplations about local encounters of people and hover flies are interspersed with some literary reflections and a biography of sorts of Malaise, a Swedish entomologist. Malaise invented an insect trap, hence the title of the book. A delightful read for those who enjoy nature writing.

My blogpost about Ghosts of Gondwana https://explorediscovernature.blogspot.co.nz/2017/03/back-in-time-to-ancient-zealandia-from.html