Creative Nonfiction: Nature Writing
By Melissa Nunez, written June 2021
from the creative nonfiction summer 2021 series
Nature writing is fertile ground for a writer, especially a female writer, to examine through vivid imagery and powerful metaphor the beauty, vulnerability, and strength within and without us.
Mother Earth. Mother Nature. Motherland. Across cultures and time, the connection between the female body and nature is an enduring thread.
I consider myself an amateur naturalist, but I wasn’t always this drawn to my natural environment. In my desire to instill in my children respect for our planet, for all its inhabitants, I found renewed wonder, fresh eyes with which to observe plants and creatures. After so much time as an observer, it felt very natural to make the leap from memoir and narrative nonfiction writing to nature writing, to take my words about myself (my body) and apply them to the natural world around me (earth body). I task myself with taking things that seem quite ordinary—an everyday blackbird perched on a car hood, the common daisy sprouting from the base of a stop sign—and approaching them from new angles, forming unexpected correlations. The surprise of discovering and sharing new information, a contrasting perspective.
Nature writing is also a medium in which to discuss oppression, exploitation, and inequality, considering how much habitat has been destroyed, how many creatures are endangered, have been erased. The importance of these losses is more evident in some areas of the globe than others, is considered more relevant for some people than others. Prejudices continue to inhabit our seemingly modern life, in both subversive and overt forms, adopted as norms inherent to the structure of day-to-day living. Many injustices are no longer so secret but are still susceptible to all manner of rug sweeping. Through ecological writing, we can explore how the actions we take, the choices we make, impact the world around us. Each decision has the rippling potential of exponential impact on the microcosms and ecosystems surrounding us. Poisons used to control populations of one creature marked pest (ants, rodents, coyotes) can damage countless others (raptors, reptiles, people). Trees mowed down to make room for cars and buildings displace countless animals who once dwelled there. Walls constructed to inhibit the migration of unwanted people inhibit the migratory movement of dwindling creatures—pollinators and wildcats.
We don’t always like looking too closely in the mirror, at times afraid of what we might see. This is where I find nature writing can function much like fantasy or science fiction, taking you to another world and showing you imbalances that seem so clear when presented with varying degrees of separation. You can take slices of your life and your environment and work through existing imbalances—those of sexism, racism, classism—connecting what is yours, what is mine to a more universal feminine (human) experience. Connecting what is happening with disappearing creatures to disappearing cultures, trampled bodies, and silenced voices.
With nature writing comes the potential to prompt reflection on and examination of our perspectives, our interactions with those around us—living things of human, plant, and animal kind. Our world isn’t perfect, people aren’t perfect, but we can be better. Taking a general reverence and respect for the natural world and making it a more personal experience can ignite a desire to do better. Nature-inspired writing can give a new voice to many who are fighting to be heard. It offers the opportunity for us to try, for even just a moment, to see the world from a different point of view.
The following works showcase the wide spectrum of the genre of nature writing, each author inspiring in their individual approach, style, and voice.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Smith Blue by Camille T. Dungy
Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (see also Yellow Arrow staff member Siobhan McKenna’s review from Yellow Arrow Journal (Re)Formation)
You can find Melissa’s beautiful, nature-based essay “What is Mine” in Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. VI, No. 1, RENASCENCE. Get your copy today.
Melissa Nunez is an avid reader, writer, and homeschooling mother of three living in the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas—a predominantly Latin@ community. Her essays have appeared in Yellow Arrow Journal, The Accents Review, and Folio, among others. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaKNunez.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.