Trees, Critters and Writers: How Nature Nurtures the Literary Mind

I see mosquitoes battling the thorns of raspberry bushes, embodying my naive stubbornness. I see the rippled tree bark mirroring my eczema-ridden skin. I see the beckoning of woodpeckers that echo my cracking knuckles. Sitting on a tree stump, I pull out a notebook and write down the connections arising from my surroundings. On evening walks through cornfields, I write lyrics in my head to future songs that will turn into stories. Spending time isolated in nature, I begin to see elements of myself that compose my creative writing identity.  

This past summer, I attended the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop in Gambier, Ohio. The purpose of the residential workshop was to generate new, creative ideas through discussion rather than focusing on perfecting a piece of writing. A cohort of 100 high school students was split into seven groups with three writing sessions throughout the day. Through meeting poets and essayists, I had the opportunity to explore a multitude of writing styles in the boundless field of writing. 

On the second day of the program, I met modern poet Hanif Abduraqquib. Abduraqquib shared a poem about his childhood experiences of observing planes take off from an old field in Columbus. Through his descriptions of grass and skies under sunsets, Abduraqquib connected the natural beauty of Columbus to his love for his hometown. Three days later, Orchid Tierney presented her poetry that used dystopian descriptions of blossoming flowers. Tierney, who uses poetry to fight against climate change, provided a unique perspective on nature based on her own observations and photography. 

Later in the program, our instructor, Mathias Svalina, encouraged us to embark on our own micro-journeys of reflection in nature. The assignment was to roam or sit around the campus until I reached a revelation only I could see or understand. Despite my immense awe for professional poets who could concoct striking images from nature, for me, the idea of observing the wild to find something personal seemed both cliche and useless. 

As I grudgingly walked around the Kenyon College campus—which is entwined with the woods—the desire to quickly reach a connection prevented me from admiring my environment. The deer leaping down roads was a phenomenon that I pulled out my phone to capture, and I saw raccoons and groaned, knowing they would spoil our dorms. Eventually, I let my ideas simmer. I sat on a tree stump and pulled out a notebook again. I began to see reflections of my fears, values, and memories in the movement of upright squirrels and lichen-covered tree trunks. I stayed on the stump in the field for hours. I wrote contemporary poetry using unripe raspberry bushes as a metaphor for estranged relationships in my Korean lineage. I drafted a humorous essay exploring a profound fear of responsibility through staring at a patch of shade under a large tree. Even when I didn’t find myself in nature, I created interesting characters built from evening hummingbirds and windy upside-down branches. 

After coming back to New York City’s hectic and bustling atmosphere, nature became negligible. Trees were invisible street ornaments, and the gray concrete was an unappealing canvas. However, only after returning to a crowded urban melting pot, I realized that Abdurraqib, Tierney, and my instructor introduced me to the importance of taking time to explore one’s individual connection to an environment. While academic assignments demand a level of coherence, clarity, and organization, sometimes  “you aren’t going to understand everything in my poems, and you don’t need to,” Tierney stated during the Q&A, and it’s true. Writing to satisfy the individual is as vital as satisfying an audience, and a useful method for literary discovery is through writing in the presence of nature. The silence allows writers to seep into their own ideas and explore their thoughts without any external influences. Writing in nature is writing what you, as a writer, know, projecting personal beliefs and original creations onto paper. 

Outside of utilizing nature for a new writing experience, spending time outdoors is a general therapeutic experience amidst a digital society. While I understand the instinct to immortalize nature through photos and the need to constantly be busy, these actions limit our experiences and perspectives of nature. Pictures can’t capture elements, such as the scent of trees after it rains or the feeling of a subtle breeze, in ways that our senses and writing can. In addition, writing on a computer can distract and isolate students from their environment, keeping them in a hyperactive, online world. While students polish assignments and work online during school, they should also give writing in nature a chance. Whether it’s sitting in Rockefeller Park during a free period or walking through Central Park to gather inspiration, stop trying to digitize every aspect of life. Instead, sit and breathe. Nature and writing by hand force people to slow down and think about what they write, why they write, and even who they are. Nature can help this fast-paced generation learn that sometimes efficiency is not the answer but rather a new, creative perspective of the world. 

At my core, I will always be a city girl. Skyscrapers outline my New York sunsets, rats create mazes in my trash, and a crowd of people color my blank notebook page. However, the woods of Ohio gave me an invaluable lesson on myself and my writing. With short attention spans and habits of burying our own self-discovery under homework and responsibilities, simply observing nature with a notebook in hand can provide a unique experience in our individual journeys of adolescence and free our creative minds.

An excerpt from the woods:

the way sweet honeysuckle gave way to the scent of strangers, and in my own neurosis, 

I began to eat my mother’s branches. 

I chew the ends of twigs on which a lineage of  Jeju seagulls hang, tailed ends colliding 

as cream feathers fall onto fuchsia tendrils. 

Or mahogany, in another man’s state. They all eat the sun, their giver, my giver’s 

Giver. It only sinks into a cascade—

A matted concoction of silence obscured by continental space. I stand in the wild and 

let ancestral neurosis taint my tongue.