A Portal to Poetry and Wonder

by Georgia Heard

I was teaching the names and ignoring the songs – Robin Wall Kimmerer

When my son was young, we took long walks down the street searching for small treasures on the ground. Our treasures were often a blade of grass, a pebble, or a seedling. It took half an hour to walk one block as he stopped to pick up a rock, gaze at a ladybug, stoop down to touch a seed or sometimes, when I wasn’t looking, stuff a not-too-special cigarette butt into his pocket. As we meandered down the sidewalk, he asked a lot of questions: Why does a ladybug have spots? How does a tree grow from a seed? He might lift up a leaf and study it closely or watch a worm wriggle across the sidewalk. My son was doing what all young children do: they see the extraordinary in the ordinary; they ask a lot of questions about the world; and they notice minute details in the everyday. 

I heard the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is also the founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, in an interview talk about how part of the scientific process is to name things — for example, to label a specific type of plant (Bayberry: Myrica) or bird (Cedar Wax Wing: Bombycilla cedrorum). But she warns that knowing the scientific name can often shut down inquiry: “We sort of say, Well, we know it now.” She says her evolution as a scientist involved embracing Indigenous ways of knowing: “I was teaching the names and ignoring the songs.” 

Kimmerer’s words remind me of a children’s book I read years ago called The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor. It describes a young boy who learns from an elderly teacher how to listen to the sounds and songs of the natural world. This wise man teaches the boy to hear a wildflower seed bursting open, rocks murmuring and hills singing. He tells the boy that it takes a lot of practice and “you can’t be in a hurry.”

Both Robin Wall Kimmerer and Byrd Baylor’s advice resonate for me as a writer as well. When we write, we can look at an ocean and write “Atlantic Ocean” and even describe it with a few details: blue water, waves crashing, sandy beach. But hearing (or imagining) the waves’ roar, smelling the salty air, seeing hundreds of shells scattered like stars on the sand, and closing our eyes and hearing what the ocean is telling us is a different kind of knowing; it’s about learning to listen and understanding the heart or poetry of something. 

In my new edition of Awakening the Heart: Teaching Poetry I describe a project I did during a month-long residency at an International school in Bangkok. In conjunction with the school’s theme of botany, they aspired to rewild a vacant lot next door in the midst of a bustling cityscape of skyscrapers and non-stop traffic. As a visiting writer, my job was to guide young learners in exploring the “poetry” of plants, if you will. 

In preparation for rewilding the vacant lot and for writing, we first imagined seeds as sentient and wondered what they might feel as they lay nestled in the dark ground waiting to sprout. We also pretended we were seeds, crouching on the floor, then slowly rising upwards toward the light. Children observed and sketched seeds, and we had conversations about what a seeds’ journey might be like both scientifically and poetically. Then they wrote messages to the seeds directly on heart-shaped wildflower seeded paper that they would then plant in the vacant lot and, hopefully, someday flower and flourish: “Seed, I hope you have a good life.” And, “We hope you don’t get eaten by bugs and other animals.” 

We imagined the children’s words mingling with the seeds and the dirt, singing songs of hope, strength, and courage to help make this small bare patch a verdant and gorgeous place.

This is what a poet’s job is, and also what children do naturally when given the opportunity: to look at the world with wonder and to feel and take in the aliveness and beauty of the world. This gift of paying close attention, especially to the small things, is often a portal to wonder, to learning, to being stewards of our planet and also, to being a poet.

Georgia Heard received 2023 Excellence in Poetry for Children Award which honors a living American poet for their aggregate work for children ages 3-13. She is the author of 21 books and numerous professional books. Her newest professional book is Awakening the Heart (second edition) and her new children’s picture book is Welcome to the Wonder House (coauthored with Rebecca Kai Dotlich). Learn more about Georgia on her website: Georgiaheard.com or on social Instagram and X @georgiaheard1.