Reasons to Read a Nature Poem Every Day

Amanda White

The pretty town of Grasmere houses the former home and burial place of William Wordsworth, one of England’s most celebrated poets. It is a bit over-commercialised now (you can imagine – like Stratford-upon-Avon with Shakespeare, everything is ‘linked’ to Wordsworth for tourism income).

But William (and his sister Dorothy) did not just confine themselves to Grasmere. Interestingly, William campaigned a few hundreds years ago against the building of Windermere railway station, believing that the influx of tourists would ruin his beloved Lakes. He was right.

His sister was also very vocal, her and a fellow writer protesting against the the found house built on the Lake District’s largest island of Belle Isle, calling it a beautiful spot that now ‘deformed by man’, and resembling a tea canister.

Wordsworth’s final home of Rydal Mount is just a short hop away from Ambleside, one of the Lake District’s prettier towns, although again a bit overrun with tourists in summer. This town apparently has the country’s busiest mountain rescue team, due to inexperienced climbers frequently getting lost of stranded.

It does remain one of the few towns, where you can literally walk from the town centre, to discover a tumbling waterfall, right on your doorstep!

All Before Me is a very interesting and unique account, of how the Lake District helped to heal one woman from a serious mental breakdown.

While teaching in her early 20s in Japan, she suffered an acute breakdown, and was even section in a Japanese psychiatric institution, until she could be flown home under escort.

Back in England, Esther (though originally from Suffolk) was offered the chance to live and work at Dove Cottage in the lake District, the home of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy.

It was here that she began to heal. In the lives and writings of these literary siblings, she found an approach to living a life of peace and meaning, and also made lifelong bonds of friendship – and eventually love.

This book is a moving and absorbing account of the struggle to know oneself, and is intertwined with stories of the Wordsworth home and history.

Esther Rutter is a writer from Suffolk, who now lives in Scotland. She has previously worked at the Wordsworth Trust and Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. She also works as a scriptwriter and appears on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

This is Wordsworth’s best-known poem. Here’s a quick excerpt.

Not to be a party pooper, but know that like all bulbs, daffodils are unsafe near animal friends, so keep them clear if they like eating flowers!

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

How John Keats’ Hampstead Home Still Inspires

Amanda White

John Keats (one of England’s favourite Romantic poets) found inspiration in Hampstead, and his house on Keats Grove continues to draw visitors who want to step into the poet’s world.

Originally built as a pair of houses, the poet resided in one half, and his friend Charles Brown (a literary critic) lived in the other.

Keats House gives us a close look at John’s life. Sharing not just his work but the calm beauty that shaped his writing. John’s illness from TB (caring for his seriously ill brother) meant that he died just 25.

Keats House is where John Keats wrote many of his best-known poems, including “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. Living in this leafy part of Hampstead gave him space to think, write and recover from heartbreak and illness.

The setting helped shape his verse, and standing in the same rooms lets you sense the quiet that guided his words.

The house itself is a well-preserved piece of late Georgian design, built in 1815. Its light-filled rooms, elegant fireplaces and pretty sash windows show off the style of the period.

The lovely gardens are perfect for a stroll, and it’s easy to imagine Keats wandering among the flowers as he searched for new ideas. The house’s simple charm helps connect visitors with the past in a direct, heartfelt way.

The History of a Camden House (two poets)

Amanda White

Fitzroy Road is a leafy suburb of Primrose Hill, that is home to a two-times blue plaque house, a red-brick Victorian terrace, where two famous poets once lived, 100 years apart. This image shows Sylvia’s spirit returning. She is buried near Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire.

Also Resided in by W.B. Yeats

Irish poet W.B Yeats (the initials stood for William Butler) lived in the same house, almost 100 years earlier. His used his unique influence to to intelligently campaign for Irish independence, away from the violent nationalism gathering pace back home.

Another London poet’s house (Hampstead) was lived in by John Keats, the Romantic poet (same name, different man). He also died tragically young (age 25, from TB).

Yorkshire’s Simon Armitage (Poet Laureate) on Nature

Simon Armitage is England’s present Poet Laureate, who grew up in (and still lives) in Yorkshire. A former probation officer, he has been a poet in residence at several universities, and often uses his poems to celebrate and help the natural world.

He surprisingly lost when appearing on Celebrity Mastermind on his chosen subject of the poetry of Ted Hughes, as they asked very difficult questions that threw him! The winner answered questions about a popular soap opera. He says next time he will choose the specialist subject of ‘What I watched on telly last night!’

Dwell is a beautifully illustrated collection of poems, also from Simon Armitage, inspired by the living creatures around us, and written at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, a landscape of woods, meadows and jungle.

Using riddle and folklore to animate a series of dwellings (from a squirrel’s drey to a beaver’s lodge), the distinction between human and animal are blurred, to create a vibrant account of non-stop stop-motion life’.

Also warning of the fragile nature of these spaces and their dwellers, due to familiar environmental threats. This book looks at the natural world that provides lasting homes, just as gardens can offer refuge for wildlife.

Simon Armitage’s Poems on Spring

Blossomise is a collaboration between England’s poet Laureate and a talented printmaker, offering 21 beautiful poems to celebrate the spring and its blossom.

The book also has a serious note, looking at the demise of orchards which has led to less blossoming trees, so important for our planet, birds and wildlife. And our apples and pears!

Poetry is in debt to the environment, having had its money’s worth as a byword for beauty or a pretty backdrop. And poetry must speak up for nature, when it cannot speak for itself.

Watch Simon’s episode of the wonderful BBC series Winter Walks, in Yorkshire.

I Am The Seed That Grew the Tree is a stunning large-format edition of nature poems by various writers. Enjoy a treasury of poems (one for every day of the year) in this gorgeous illustrated gift book.

From Blake to Dickinson, and from Frost to Hardy, from Rossetti to Shakespeare and Wordsworth, there is a poem for everyone

The book features 366 poems, one for each day, including leap years. Each poem has been carefully picked to match the season, capturing the feel of crisp spring mornings, the shimmer of summer heat, autumn leaves and winter frost.

This daily format helps children and adults alike build a gentle routine and look forward to each new day with something meaningful to read.

About the Editor

Fiona Waters was born in Edinburgh, and has had her nose in a book ever since. She has worked with children’s books her whole adult life as a bookseller, publisher, writer, reviewer and editor. She now compiles anthologies for children.

A Happy Poem to Start Every Day offers poems to sooth or motivate, whether you wake up to the chirping of birds, or stumble out the door in a last minute rush. Take time for yourself each morning to boost your mood, with a happy poem to set yourself up for the day.

This book features one happy poem for each day of the year, to keep by your besides or on the kitchen counter, to read while your coffee brews. Or keep it in your rucksack or briefcase for the morning commute. Includes poems by John Keats to Rumi.

Here’s a poem from the book: Naga-Uta (inspired by Japanese short poems):

Clearest of clear days;
Frozen leaves under my feet,
Frost on bare branches,
Blue sky, smoke from the funnel
of a narrowboat,
and on the quiet river,
great slicks of pale gold sunlight
Wendy Cope

Editor Jane McMorland Hunter is a passionate fan of the written word, who when not writing works in a bookshop. She has written and edited several poetry anthologies for children and adults.

A Happy Poem to End Each Day

A Happy Poem to End Every Day is the obvious choice to partner the book with. Soothe your weary soul in bed or an armchair with some of the greatest poets, to ever put pen to paper, including:

• William Wordsworth on the joy of skating
• Emily Brontë enjoying life on the moors
• Simon Armitage catching a cricket ball
• Wendy Cope sharing an orange
• Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat.

Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone is a book of poems and meditations with a difference. Over 100 short texts have been typed into small squares of gold leaf, then photographed into a sequence.

The book is full of the light and wind that fills the Pembrokeshire coast where it was crafted, each page anchored to the landscape, by the mechanical rhythm of Jackie’s antique typewriters.

What People Say About Jackie’s Art

Beautiful, lyrical and lovely. Joanne Harris

A quiet masterpiece Maria Popova

Jackie Morris is an artist who lives in Wales, where she shares a small cottage with her children, two odd dogs and cats of various colours, mostly ginger! She also illustrated the wonderful book The Lost Words.

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World is published with the Library of Congress and edited by the Poet Laureate of the United States,  a collection of poems reflecting our relationship with nature, by 50 celebrated contemporary writers.

Each poem engages with the author’s local landscape – from the breath-taking variety of flora in a national park to a lone tree flowering by a bus stop.

Poems are like trees. They let us breathe together. In each line break or stanza, there’s a place for us to breathe. Not unlike a forest, poems can be a place to stop and remember that we too are living.

W.S. Merwin wrote in his poem ‘Place’ that ‘On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree’. I think I would add that I would also like to write a poem. Maybe I’d even write a poem about a tree?’

About the Editor

Ada Ada Limón is an American poet. In 2022, she was named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress. This made her the first Latina to be Poet Laureate of the USA.

Perhaps one of the best-loved nature poets is American Emily Dickinson. The daughter of a US senator, this young beautiful woman (who never married) was a recluse, who shut herself away (when not gardening) to write romantic poems on nature.

In life she suffered from depression, anxiety and eye pain (difficult for a writer), which may well have been the reasons why she preferred to be alone. Despite her popularity today, just 10 of her poems were published during her lifetime.

It’s believed that after his wife’s death, a friend of her father’s perhaps had a secret romance with Emily, but there are no letters to prove this. Emily died from a stroke, just 55 years of age.

Dickinson valued her privacy. She kept to herself, rarely leaving her house in her later years, and often refused visitors. Her reclusive lifestyle has become almost legendary.

Yet her isolation helped her focus on writing, giving her the quiet she needed to create her best work. Her letters show she cared deeply about her friends and family, even if she saw them less often.

While Dickinson wrote around 1,800 poems, only a handful were published before she died. Those that did appear in print were often changed by editors who did not understand her new style.

She kept her poems in hand-sewn booklets and trusted her family to care for them. Most people only discovered the full range of her work after her death.

Dickinson’s poems are well-known for their dashes, irregular punctuation and capital letters where you don’t expect them. This style puzzled her early editors, who tried to “fix” it in print.

Although she kept her distance from crowds, Dickinson kept up intense friendships by letter, especially with Susan Gilbert Dickinson (her sister-in-law) and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (a writer and critic).

After Dickinson died in 1886, her younger sister Lavinia found the bundles of poems. Lavinia asked others for help publishing them, leading to the first collections in the 1890s.

Also read The Illustrated Emily Dickinson, a gorgeous collection of 25 of Emily’s most beloved poems, with stunning colour collage art. Poems include ‘I’m Nobody!’ and A Bird Came Down the Walk’ along with the poem below (which represents hope in the human soul, inspired by a strong-willed bird, who never gives up).

Brief commentary accompanies each poem.

Betsy Siber

Despite her Italian parentage, Christina Rossetti was born and raised in England. All four children had good educations (her brother was also a poet). She was regarded as the finest poet of the Victorian era.

Christina was devoutly religious, causing her to refuse two offers of marriage. She led a reclusive life after one brother’s death, and died age just 64.

Despite never marrying, she wrote some of the greatest-ever love poems. And this poem on colours:

What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain’s brink.
What is red? a poppy’s red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro’.
What is white? a swan is white
Sailing in the light.
What is yellow? pears are yellow,
Rich and ripe and mellow.
What is green? the grass is green,
With small flowers between.
What is violet? clouds are violet
In the summer twilight.
What is orange? Why, an orange,
Just an orange!

About the Poet

Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 in London to a family steeped in art and literature. Her father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a political exile and a respected scholar, while her mother, Frances, encouraged a love of books at home.

Surrounded by creativity and strong ideas, Christina began writing poetry as a young child. The warmth and tension in her family home shaped her view of the world and gave her the emotional depth that runs through her work. She wrote the words to the Christmas carol ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’.

If you love nature and poetry, here are inspirational books to enjoy. Whether you keep them by your bedside table, or perhaps enjoy reading under a tree or in the garden on summer days, these nature poems capture the breeze in the trees, the song of a bird or the chill of a winter’s day.

Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers is an anthology of classic and contemporary poems all about the weather. From storms to heatwaves to April showers, there’s a poem to reflect all the elements through the year.

From the nursery rhyme ‘Rain, Rain, Go Away’ to Sylvia Plath’s ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’, and from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘A Snowy Day’ to Amanda Gorman’s ‘Earthrise’, slip into a poem to dream of better weather (whether to you that means snow, rain or sun).

Or just reveal in a mirroring of what is currently  going on outside your window. There is all sorts of weather to be found; some favourites as well as some you may not even have heard of.

With a selection of poems stretching across the globe and centuries, you’re sure to find a weather poem to cast some sunlight on your day.

Nature Poems for Spring and Summer Evenings

A Nature Poem for Every Spring Evening is a sublime bedside companion to enjoy, as the frost melts and days grow longer, with poems to immerse yourself in the season.

This anthology features poems by William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Robert Browning and Eleanor Farjeon, some of the finest poets that ever put pen to paper describe this wondrous season of new beginnings.

With an entry each day from 1st of March to 31st of May, these 91 poems will invigorate you in the warmer wetter months of spring.

From Robert Herrick’s first drops of March dew and the breaking blossoms of Laurence Binyon’s April day to William Blake’s meadow-sweet May and Emily Dickinson’s promise of light to come.

A Nature Poem for Every Summer Evening is a lovely collection of poems about nature to read at your bedside, or under a street on long light summer evenings. Pour out a long drink, take a seat and lose yourself in this sublime collection.

From William Shakespeare to Emily Dickinson and from John Keats to Isaac Rosenberg, some of the finest poets who have ever put pen to paper describe the slow glowing evenings of the season.

There is one entry for each summer day (from 1 June to 31 August). A collection of 92 poems to offer the perfect backdrop for balmy summer evenings in the garden.

From Christina Rosetti’s ‘larks hang singing, singing, singing over the wheat fields’ to Eugene Lee-Hamilton’s ‘rich, hot scent of old fir forests heated by the sun’. You’ll also find Samuel Palmer’s evocative descriptions of summer twilight, and Rachel Field’s whimsical musings on butterflies.

Fun Nature Poems for Young Readers

Nature’s Remarkable Partners is a fun book for young readers and two voices, peeking into mutually beneficially partnerships in nature – from butterflies and milkweed, to clownfish and anemones.

Children will enjoy poems that teach about the egg-laying carrion beetle and its hitchhiking mite passengers, and the little goby fish (that guards the pistol shrimp from predators, in exchange for a safe haven).

Brief science notes accompany each featured partnership, with back matter offering more opportunities for study.

Out There In The Wild is a stunning volume of poetry to celebrate the natural world, illustrated by Diana Catchpole. Packed with poems about everything that lives in the sea and  rivers, on land or in the sky.

Young readers will meet eagles and skylarks, tigers and elephants, foxes, rabbits, bats, bees and butterflies.

It’s easy to believe that humans are outside of nature. But we are part of nature. As much as the tree is for the woodlouse, or the soil is for the potato.

The Rhythm (by James)

There’s a rhythm out there
there’s a rhythm within
as the seasons turn
as the planets spin.

It’s the call of the wild
It’s the breath of the world,
and it’s life so alive
that it has to be heard.

It’s the sweep of the swoop
of the owl at dawn
It’s the dash of the fox
through the August corn

It’s the tug of the breeze
and the tree that it shakes
and the nest and the egg
and the crack as it breaks.

It’s the river that rolls
as it picks up pace
It’s the moon and the sea
and those great grey waves.