For too long, climate communication has relied on the belief that if we stick with the science and communicate the evidence, action will follow. Scientific knowledge gives us the foundations for understanding possible futures, while speculation allows us to explore them. But poetry can bring that speculation to life, giving us a language to express what living through those futures might mean.
The power of poetry lies in making us pay attention to a sound, a place, an object or something changing around us. Researchers have argued that eco-poetry can influence how we experience a place, what we notice and what it might become in the future. They suggest that by “sounding” environmental change, speculative poetry offers us a tangible way to engage with, interpret and navigate the uncertainty of the climate crisis.
However, the literature professor Andrew Gorin has cautioned against making superficial claims that a poem will directly reduce carbon emissions or lead to greener policy. Its influence is much more nuanced, circulating ideas, offering different ways of seeing and contributing to how we respond to the world. There is also evidence for how poetry does this.
Psychology experts in the US and Canada argue that poetry evokes emotion partly through mental simulation. We imagine what the words describe, respond to rhythm and sound, and position ourselves within the poem. In one experiment that involved 27 German-speaking participants, researchers used psychophysiology (the study of how thoughts and emotions link to physical responses in the human body), brain imaging and behavioural responses to show that recited poetry could produce a range of responses from chills to goosebumps.
In my own ongoing doctoral research, school leaders engaged with the process of writing speculative poems, exploring their hopes, worries and uncertainties about climate change. Poetry has enabled them to engage with experiences that are complex, interconnected and difficult to put into words.
Their speculative poems bring knowledge, experience, place, memory, emotion and uncertainty together, enabling school leaders to consider what might be demanded of their leadership as climate change increasingly affects their schools, communities, children and young people.
Read more:
Introducing The Conversation Climate Poetry Award – for UK and Ireland-based academics
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How to be a poet
So how can we all reap the benefits of climate poetry? To start writing speculative climate poetry, try jumping ten years ahead. Choose something completely ordinary: your commute, your lunch, your garden or a trip to the shops. What might have changed in ten years because of climate change?
Experiment with epic and lyric. Write about the same climate future in two different ways. Epic poetry tells a larger story, often involving journeys, struggles and transformation, while lyric poetry focuses more closely on a particular experience, feeling, relationship, place or moment.
Think about The Odyssey for epic poetry, and write a journey across time and place influenced by unpredictable events, struggle and transformation. Then try lyric poetry. Take inspiration from Emily Dickinson’s I’m Nobody! Who are you? and focus closely on a particular experience, relationship, place or moment. What does each form allow you to notice and express differently?
Sound out the future. Walk somewhere familiar and notice what you can hear, smell, see and feel. Use walking, listening and writing to look more deeply at what’s happening around us. Now imagine the same place ten years from now. What might stay the same, disappear or change?
Start with an ordinary object: an umbrella, a tree or a bottle of water. Imagine its place in a climate-changed future.
Explore the emotional power of poetry. Let your voice lead the writing. Talk aloud about a climate-changed future, a place you care about, or something you fear losing. Record yourself and listen back. Notice the words and phrases that make you pause, feel uncomfortable or give you hope, then use them to build your poem.
Often, writing a poem can seem intimidating if you’re aiming for perfection. Instead, simply begin with what you notice. Bring together the ideas, feelings and possibilities that matter to you and let them become a poetic speculation about how to create a better future together.
