I am the proud holder of the title, Poet of the Week for W3 Weekly We’ave Poetry Prompt #59. Braden, last week’s PoW gave me the honour. I’m chuffed. My warmest thanks to him for his good taste in poetry. 😁

Here are my guidelines for the poetry prompt.

My guidelines 
Write about the first wild creature that you see which inspires you on the day you write your poem. (by wild creature I do not mean your spouse, etc.)

*express the important symbiosis of wildlife, nature and us.
*our emotional connection to the smallest of creatures (or the largest).
*about anything from the natural world
*how your observation of an animal, insect, bird, wildflowers, etc. makes you feel.
*If you cannot get outside—write about the nature/wildlife within your home or visible from a window. (even the window of your mind)

Write in any poetry form or style you wish.

Alongside these guidelines, I also asked if anyone of the contributing poets for the W3 Weekly Poetry Prompt might like to add the hashtag for the #30 Days Wild Challenge on behalf of the Wildlife Trusts. To help promote awareness of the value of wildlife. It is a UK annual event that inspires people to get outside and enjoy nature and wildlife.

I am a slow reader, but the poems I’ve read so far written in response to this challenge are remarkable. I look forward to reading them all.

The Wildlife Trusts #30DaysWild

The aim of Wildlife Trusts #30 Days Wild (annual event in the UK) is to get everyone out there and reconnect with the natural world. To notice the smallest of insects to the tallest of trees. To realise their importance and value.

The important message that poetry helps to spread is reconnecting people with nature. To focus on the natural world. To care for it.

I’ve gone wild and written a poem (following the rules, of course) about the first creature I saw. Which was a small spider.

The Small Spider: a curious observance for #30DaysWild

The Small Spider


I go for a walk down a country lane
(it’s not in the country)
I lied.
I’m in town
 
The first thing I spied was plain to see
Can you see it too?
Can you?
(or is it just me?)
I spied a Spider
as plain as plain as can be
on the bark of an old plane tree.
 
What type of spider?
I couldn’t say
It’s small Minutiae
Unconsidered by most who pass this tree
They don’t know it’s there
It’s hard to see,
(If at all)
It’s small
 
I lean in close to get a better look
I stand on a twig
The plane tree shook
The spider froze,
They know I’m here!

Am I too near?
My nose too big?
My eyes so large?
(btw, I’ve named him Marge)
 
He sensed my gaze
and froze
I am afeared!
Is he dead?
Is he ill?
It’s ever so still
So still on the bark,
I take his picture on my iPhone
for a lark
Then, turn away
To leave him alone.
 
I sneak a peek
With a backward glance 
perchance
The spider I spied
Hadn’t died

He’s on the run!
I watch him weave his way
and take his leave 
in camouflage, patterns of his old plane tree
to disappear aloft
I crane my neck 
to see—
but by heck, 
he’s doffed his hat and gone.

Far, far up the tree,
He’s run
Nice knowing you, Marge.
‘twas fun


Lesley Scoble, June 2023

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Poetic Connection with Nature

Two well known poets, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage both use their poetry to express the beauty of nature and the plight of the insect world.

Carol Ann Duffy

In May 2019, Carol Ann Duffy came to the end of her ten-year tenure as UK Poet Laureate. 

To celebrate her poet laureateship, she presented Into Thin Air: Carol Ann Duffy presents poems about our vanishing insect world. 

The event involved commissioned poetry from selected poets. 

Poems by Alice Oswald, Daljit Nagra, Paul Muldoon, and others. To express the beauty of an insect world facing extinction.

I quote Duffy who said,

“…unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades. The repercussions this will have for the planet’s ecosystems are catastrophic.” As school children all over the world demonstrate against climate change and Extinction Rebellion carry their trees on to Waterloo Bridge, here are several newly commissioned poems, and one of mine, that celebrate and properly regard insects, as poets have done since Virgil. Everything that lives is connected and poetry’s duty and joy is in making those connections visible in language.” 

Follow the link to read the full Guardian article and poems.

simon armitage
_{“Nature has come back to the centre of poetry,”}

They appointed Simon Armitage Poet Laureate in May 2019. He is a poet who cares about nature, climate and the environment. 
Here is his poem about THE HERON. I like it and hope you do too.

You pull onto the soft verge
And the tyres slacken into the dirt.
 
I pass the field-glasses
From the glove compartment
And you fumble, finding a focus
Through the action of the wipers
 
And describe it to me: how it
Hangs in the shallows, shaking the rain
From its featherings. How it watches,
Then cautiously adopts
 
Its fishing position, then wades
Thoughtfully forward, then holds again.
You go on piecing out the picture
And I affect not to listen
 
Until you put the glasses down
And I realise you’ve stopped talking.
We sit there, breathing, steaming up
The windows and watching
 
As the heron feints
To a fleck on the line of the lake
Like a wood-chip flaw
On slate Ingres paper
 
And the hilltops are water-marked
If we look hard enough.

Simon Armitage 

NOTES
30 Days Wild is run by the Wildlife Trusts, this annual event is taking place between 1st – 30th June 2023. The event is suitable for people of all ages and backgrounds and aims to connect people with nature and increase their appreciation of the natural world by asking them to do one wild thing a day for the entire month.

Nature and wildlife are vital to our mental health and physical wellbeing.

THANKS
My wholehearted thanks to David, Skeptics Kaddish and Braden, Curious Cappuccino for their encouragement and support.

My humble thanks to all the poets for their brilliant, wild, poetic responses to my 30 Days Wild poetry prompt.

Be wild. 🕷️

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Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright, (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in schools); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.