Nature Poetry: The Kansas School Naturalist State College Kansas
Nature Poetry: The Kansas School Naturalist State College Kansas
Nature Poetry: The Kansas School Naturalist State College Kansas
John Breukelman
10
like moonbeams on a river
11
purple mountain majesties
12
the wild geese sailing high
13
14
beasts with kingly eyes
15
Trail with daisies and barley
The Kansas
School N aturalist
Published by
"Statement required by the Act of October, 1962: Section 4369, Title 39,
United States Code, showing Ownership, \[anngement and Circulation." The
Kansas School Natunllist is published in October, December, February, and ApriL
Editorial Office and Publication Office at 1200 Commercial Street, Emporia, ~
Kansas, 66801. The Naturalist is edited and published by the Kansas State Teachers
College, Emporia, Kansas. Editor, Hobert J. Boles, Department of Biology.
John Breukelman
So wrote the youthful William Cullen Bryant in 1821; indeed, nature does
speak a various language. Those who love nature return the compliment,
writing and speaking about her in various forms. such as prose, poetry, and as
Judith Jacobs has said , "prose-related writings with overtones of verse."
Much of the world's poetry is nature-oriented. As is hinted by the quotations on
the front cover of this number of The Kansas School Naturalist , this has been
true from the early days of English writing.
Some nature poetry is entirely or mainly descriptive, as for example, THE
SEASONS, by James Thomson (1700-1748).
School ; she now lives on the family farm how sterile the mold.
\Solbakken) near Hudson , Wisconsin. Here are How quiet the elm;
five examples from her almost 800 " prose how bitter the cOld.
related writings with overtones of verse" that How grey the clouds;
hunched--ready to leap
Exult!
April is a song
A lone "Eagle,"
Of a cherry tree.
descends to its craggy aerie
the Moon.
Dark clouds ,
The farmer displayed his red fox pelts;
tonight.
Rep r inted b.\' permi ss ion from the first. lhi r d. and si xth
bookie" in Ihe se ries AR OU\" D SOLB.\KKE\" : c opvrig hl 1967 .
19ti9 . and 1972 b~' Judi t h A I,\' mere Jacobs.
Reprinled fr om Co rnell Sde nce Lea rl et. Vol. 57. No.3. Marc h
1964. by pe r mi ss ion of the author. who also sup plied the
ac company ing photograph .
Gary Snyder , who lives in the foothills of One of the best known of Japanese haiku
the Sierra Nevada mountains in California , was written in 1686 by the famous poet Basho
tries to speak for the non-human realms in his (1644-1694 ), who is thought to have started
poems. He held Bolligen and Guggenheim writing at the age of nine. Translated literally,
Fellowships and has received several poetry this haiku goes:
award. WITHOUT is [rom his recent book
MANZANITA. Old pond;
frog jump in,
water-sound.
WITHOUT
In English, this does not meet the 5-7-5
the silence
requirement, but in Japanese it does:
of nature
within.
Furu-ike-ya
kawazu tobi-komu
the power within.
mizu-no-oto.
the power
without.
I became fascinated with haiku ( both il epr int ed from CHF.RRY BLO SSO~I S. JAPA\F.SE HAIK U.
singular and plural) when I first encountered SERIF.S III. tra n, laled b,' Pel el' Be ilen,o n: cop.night 191i0 b.l
The Peter Pauper Press.
them in a college English course. In its strict
arrangement this Japanese verse form consists
Because of the shortness, haiku mu st
of three lines, of seven teem syllables arranged
depend on suggestion and allusion; they cannot
5-7-5. The haiku I turned in for my class
give detailed descriptions. This very
assignment was:
limitation, however, makes a haiku an
interes ting way to express a quick impression ,
Japanese haiku
a snapshot as it were , of a natural feature . I
five syllables, then seven,
have had a lot of fun doing haiku , a few samples
and then five again.
of which follow .
CYPRESS
ROOTS
Equally at home
in the woods , or in the towns
~~~U'IJ raiding garbage cans.
ICE
also destruction.
DAFFODIL
TOGETHER
Unrequited love,
Neptune and driftwood , nemesis for Narcissus,
how came you thus together bright orange, yellow.
on the Georgia beach?
CHILDREN AND POETRY My daughter. Mrs. Robert Yoder of
Peabody , Kansas. when she was teaching a
Children seem to have natural affinity for group of educable retarded children at
poetry. They not only like the rhythms of the Hillsboror , Kansas, used poetry writing as an
Mother Goose Rhymes and other "children 's interest developer. On one occasion when she
poems " but many, if not most , of them like to suggested the format: 1. the subject; 2. a two
make up verses themselves. I was one of these ; word line describing the subject; 3. a three
the oldest "poem" I still have in my possession word line telling what the subject does; 4. a
was written in 1911, when I was at the ripe age four-word line telling how the subject makes
of ten. It goes like this: the writer feel , one of the 12-year old girls
wrote this about boys.
Snowflakes look like stars,
Some flowers look like moons, Boys
The wind sounds like a coyote, Rough tough
And the rain makes drumming tunes. They make noise
Bad sad mad glad
Boys.
must have had help from an
understanding teacher , because in the Dakota
The most interesting thing about children
plains where I grew up snow was something
and poetry I have seen recently was an article
you used to make snow men, or to build snow
entitled "Child as Poet and Parent as Child " by
forts for snowball battles , or something you
James F . Mersmann , on the editorial page of
had to shovel out of the way-not to be
the Kansas City Star, February 4, 1973. The
compared with stars. My next one was a year
following is reprinted from the article, by
later; by then I had adopted the "Little Bo
permission of Dr. Mersmann , Professor of
Peep" format:
English, Benedictine College, Atchison ,
Kansas.
" For me one of the best kinds of sharing
SHEP
and 'making' with my children is the making of
poetry . . Sometimes road trips that might
Myoid dog Shep
otherwise have been filled with quarrels or
Has lost his pep
brain-rattling car games, have been relieved
And doesn't know where to find it.
for .a few moments by our attention to the
He likes to lay
possible poetry along the road. 'What do these
Around all day
silos look like?' Maybe the first answer is 'huge
And doesn't seem to mind it.
bullets ' but if you are a gentle parent you
probably don ' t encourage that; you suggest
My daughter. Mrs. Claire Schelske of Ann that perhaps a more imaginative image can be
Arbor, Michigan, when she was a pupil in the found. Finally some one finds it:
third grade at the laboratory school on the
KSTC campus, wrote several, of which my
favorite is one about kittens:
o G REA T SPIRIT,
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me! I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
LET ME WALK IN BEAUTY,
and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
MAKE MY HANDS RESPECT
the things you have made THOSE LONG STONE FENCES
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
MAKEMEWISE A lovely Sunday drive;
so that I may understand Restful it should have been
the things you have taught my people. But that my mind would not
LET ME LEARN THE LESSONS Forget those tired men
you have hidden in every leaf and rock . Who placed flat stone on stone
I SEEK STRENGTH, To make a measured pile
not to be greater than my brother,' So high, so wide , so long,
but to fight my greatest enemy-myself. Mile after weary mile;
MAKE ME ALWAYS READY So I arrived at home
to come to you with With aching back and arms
clean hands and straight eyes. Just seeing those stone fences
SO WHEN LIFE FADES, Surrounding Flint Hills farms.
as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you
DESERT
without shame.
All the way to the far horizon
extends the solid shifting sea
A \ radiLion al Sioux pra\'er provid ed b.\' I~ed Cloud I ndian School on which we stand.
I 11 01.\' Ho ~a r.\ Mi:,:, ion I. Father Ted Zuern. Di retto r. Pine
Hidge . South Dako ta. A soft wind
blows the hard sharp sand
in rippling wavelets
The rest of the space in this number of The erasing our footprints
Naturalist is occupied by samples of my own as though we had been
writing. They were done at various times from wading
the early thirties to 1973. I hope you enjoy in warm and lazy
reading them as much as I enjoyed writing grainy water.
them .
BEAUTY
~.toi
Anyone with open eyes
may "look on Beauty bare,"
also in rose and butterfly,
sunshine, ra in, and air.
To him whose quest is beauty,
beauty is everywhere. w .. ..,,~
PLAINS OF KANSAS
LENGTH vs STRENGTH
WINGS
TO A HOUSE SPARROW
WHY NOr?
Said ma skunk
to her kiddies
"let us spray. "
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
We use 2-4-0
They're a cosmopolitan lot,
asawild
these close companions of his-
lettuce spray.
COPY CAT
they travel in his ships and trains;
CHRISTMAS TREES
or other baubles
What more can we afford to lose?
self-decorated.
we have only one earth .
The Author
The author of the "Nature Poetry"
number of The Kansas School
Naturalist was a professor of biology
at KSTC from 1929 until his
retirement in 1968. He was the
chairman of the committee that
founded the Naturalist in 1954, and
was the editor for its first fourteen
years. Breukelman Hall, the biology
portion of the science-mathematics
complex, was named in his honor in
1970. He is working on another issue
of the Naturalist , to de~l with the
environment; this will probably
appear in April 1974.
KEY TO QUOTATIONS
ON FRONT COVER
Fitzgerald. 1809-1883.
Dr. Dwight Spencer for the 8. THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT,
9; Trowbridge, 1827-1916
credited were taken by the author. 15. FERN HILL, Dylan Thomas, 1914-1953