Poems about Climate Change

Poems Celebrating Nature

“the earth is a living thing” by Lucille Clifton
is a black shambling bear

“A Prayer in Spring” by Robert Frost
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day…
 
“Drifting Flowers of the Sea” by Sadakichi Hartmann
Across the dunes, in the waning light…

“Nature Aria” by Yi Lei
Autumn wind chases in…

“Move” by Alicia Ostriker
Whether it’s a turtle who drags herself…

“Earth Your Dancing Place” by May Swenson
Beneath heaven’s vault…

“Nature” by Henry David Thoreau
O Nature! I do not aspire…

Related Interviews

“We are foot soldiers in the war against climate change, and we are losing. Like most soldiers, we lean on the entire universe of language to buttress us—from songs to smutty limericks. But we long for Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owens, poets who can interpret our experience and explain it to those who will come after.”
—from “Investing in Poetry: An Interview with the Team at Treehouse Investments”

“What is happening to the rainforest; what is happening to biodiversity; how fast the species are going; this is terrible. Students sometimes say, when I talk about it, ‘I find this very upsetting.’ And I say, ‘You should. You should find it so upsetting that you can't put it down.’ That's the only way things are going to happen. If you say ‘this is too bad, but I've got other things to think about,’ nothing’s going to happen.”
—W. S. Merwin in “A Language for Nature: Preserving the Hawaiian Rainforest”

“People are going to be asked to radically alter their lives—for their whole lives— in order that their kind and their world might remain.... it is going to take some work to help people ‘see’ in their mind's ‘eye’ that far off horizon many generations beyond their own time, a time towards which they are going to have to try to take a leap of faith-and a leap which involves deep sacrifice at that. But I wouldn’t be making the effort to answer you in this way, at length, or to write such a book, if I did not believe we still had that chance. A real chance. And that art could be in service of that goal.”
—Jorie Graham in “Imagining the Unimaginable: Jorie Graham in Conversation”
 

Educator Resources

Lesson Plans about the Environment: Find lesson plans featuring classic and contemporary poems about nature, climate change, and environmental issues.

Poetry as a Creative Practice to Enhance Engagement and Learning in Conservation Science: Read this article about teaching poetry and conservation. 

Environment Poems for Kids: Find poems about the environment and the climate crisis that are appropriate for young readers.

Nature Poems for Kids: Find poems about nature that are appropriate for young readers.