Challenge 2: Write a poem about nature

Points available: 1

About the challenge

Poets and writers have always been inspired by the nature all around us. Find your inner writer to help you look more closely at the nature near you. Choose a beautiful view, a shady woodland or bubbling stream as your subject or take a closer look at an interesting plant or creature. Think about how you might describe it using all your senses, and how it makes you feel. Find descriptive words which really bring your subject to life. Don’t try to make a finished poem in one go, take time to choose the best words and polish the phrases that work. Make lots of fragments and then think about how they might fit together. And think about the rhythm and energy of the words you use- do they help create the sound of the river or the call of the bird you are describing

Helpful tips

If you are not sure how to get started there are lots of simple ways.
Perhaps your poem rhymes at the end of each line in a rhyming couplet (or perhaps it doesn’t).
You could make an acrostic poem- this is a poem where the first letter of each line spells out the subject of your poem.
Or you could make a Haiku. This is a style of poetry from Japan which is only three lines long and uses the number of syllables in each line to create a form which can produce beautiful results. To create your haiku the first line is 5 syllables long, the second 7 syllables and the final line is 5 syllables.
If you don’t feel poetic write about the countryside from a birds point of view flying high over the hills.

More information

If you are looking for inspiration, then look up some of our best nature poets.

William Wordsworth

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills”

John Clare

“Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi' glittering dance and reeling in the sun”

Or take a look at Robert Macfarlane’s “The Lost words” and “The Lost spells”