the wolf oak sessions

Lucille clifton

In her unnamed poem that begins “surely I am able to write poems / celebrating grass…”, Clifton examines her relationship with traditional forms of nature poetry, in which the author is an observer who describes the landscape. She finds she is unable to complete this kind of poem because “under that poem [there is] always an other poem.” What does this suggest about the role of nature poetry and how poets use nature to express ideas? What might you find under a poem about the landscape?

Vievee francis

In “Another Antipastoral”, Francis seems to have discovered something intensely personal under the landscape. What has the mountain awakened? What is happening to the speaker in the poem? How do they feel about it? Why is this an “antipastoral”?

carl phillips

In “Blue-Winged Warbler”, Phillips, too, is looking away from the surface of things, into the interstices. What does he find in those in-between spaces? What isn’t findable? Phillips purpose here is not to describe nature but to explore emotion. What do the metaphors of nature and agriculture bring to the poem? What does the title tell us about the poem?