Where is the wild? A nature writing project with Land Lines

Though the double vision of a screen share, I watched a video woman walking around Stirley Community Farm, lovingly describing the work she does there in her (amazingly named) role as Inspiring People’s Officer. The only thing we both had in common at that moment was the weather, except I had my windows shut, where as she was exposed to the sharp Yorkshire air. In fact everything about me felt shut, separate from the outside.

I was attending a nature writing workshop lead by Testiment for the Land Lines Project. As a group we were able to explore this feeling of separation from nature and discussed what exactly re-wilding meant, not only for an environment but what it is to re-wild ourselves.

What I found most interesting about the work done at the Stirley Community Farm, was the emphasis on not just letting the environment be free to do what it wants, but instead making calculated decisions to look after health of the land, in order to restore it. The land needs not to be left to go ‘wild’, but instead to be nurtured. And just as much as the land needs us, we need the land. This is evident in how much the local community benefits from the farm, including everything from community maintained vegetable gardens to training young people in conservation.

Sadly, due to lockdown we weren’t able to actually be at the farm and instead the workshop was held over zoom. But this added an interesting extra layer to our poetry, because instead of just writing about nature, we were also had an awareness of our current separation from it.

This detachment is what inspired me to write Outside of me, a poem about observing someone in a moment, whilst you are separate from it. On a literal level, it was me watching a YouTube video of someone in nature, but I also intended the poem to chart the feeling of distancing from reality/ spaced-out feeling, that can come with anxiety and depression, the kind of numbness where you can see someone beside you who is so absorbed in the moment, but you yourself feel like you’re not really there.

Click here to view my poem and the other wonderful poetry and artwork created from this workshop series.