300 Goats

“Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye (2015)

This link leads to a short film interpretation by Motionpoems of Nye’s poem, “Famous.” The poem is concerned with intimacy, perception, and identity. As in “300 Goats,” one of the themes is that beings are intuitively capable.

“To Jamyla Bolden of Ferguson, Missouri” by Naomi Shihab Nye (2016)

As opposed to “300 Goats,” this poem addresses the inability to protect children, not from inclement environmental conditions in the natural world, but from gunfire. The poem refers to a historical Ferguson categorized by farmland and a time that the speaker remembers nostalgically as safer for children.

“In California: Morning, Evening, Late January” by Denise Levertov (1989)

In this poem of place and the environment, Levertov illustrates a landscape manipulated by human intervention—through which—choked and cemented over—nature somehow persists. 

“Iowa City: Early April” by Robert Haas (1996)

Throughout this poem by Robert Haas, the speaker makes a strong attempt to observe the animals of his Iowa neighborhood without imbuing them with too much human quality. In a dream, however, the visiting deer “looked at me with a stilled defiant terror, like a thing with no choices” (Line 18). The poem balances an effort to see the natural world clearly with a desire to know the self.

“The Pond” by Gregory Orr (2002)

In this poem, the speaker describes a scenario in which a neighbor seeks to save baby geese from being eaten by resident snapping turtles. The neighbor baits and catches a few of the predators, but there is evidence that the turtles—and nature—will ultimately prevail.