An Arkansas Way of Seeing
How Arkansas Teaches Us to Write Poetry
My poetry is really just trail mud and crooked handwriting that usually starts with something tiny, like the thud of my feet in leaf mush or fog draped over a holler. Arkansas keeps throwing moments like these at me. My job is mostly not to miss them. People ask how I write. I don’t. The landscape writes. I just run, bike, walk, or sit long enough for the words to catch up. There’s a kind of slow magic in the way Arkansas doesn’t advertise itself. No neon signs or billboards stating TURN HERE FOR INSPIRATION. The landscapes are classically shy in the won’t wave back till the twelfth try behavior, but once they crack a smile, they talk your ear off. Give them time and they’ll end up writing half your poems for you.
SEEING LIKE A POET
I don’t pretend to know what I’m doing, but I know what works for me and maybe it’s helpful to others who want to wring a bit more meaning out of their time outdoors.
Move first, think later. Walk, run, bike, paddle, or crawl to get your blood going. Movement knocks the dust off the senses and wakes the mind up, like an old generator sputtering to life. The idea is rhythm. Everything outdoors moves in rhythm.
Don’t force the “big idea”. Inspiration rarely arrives as a lightning strike. More often, it’s something tiny:
A mushroom glowing under oak leaves.
A cattle pond catching the sky.
A rusty fence leaning like it’s tired.
You don’t chase the meaning. You let the meaning chase you.
Write ugly notes. Poetry doesn’t start off poetic. Mine starts as a sweaty phone note or a scribble scratched with a twig. Half-thoughts and half-misspelled, but that’s the point: capture first, craft later.
Let the landscape set the pace. Write slow when the world is slow. Write short when the world contracts into sharp moments, like a hawk swooping low or a coyote slipping between trees. The terrain teaches you cadence. Hills teach breath. Rivers teach flow. Big, flat Delta fields teach stillness and long lines.
End with gratitude, not perfection. A bad poem written outside is worth more than a perfect poem written indoors out of guilt. Arkansas rewards participation, not performance.
WHAT IT MEANS TO FEEL AT HOME SOMEWHERE
People talk a lot about “holistic wellness” these days, like it’s a vitamin you order online. When I’m on a trail, watching the seasons turn, something clicks. My stress untangles, my shoulders drop, and my deepest thoughts (fatherhood, grief, joy, place, faith, belonging) all start to form. Usually few answers manifest, and that’s fine. They just shape and that’s enough.
The landscape demands your presence. You can’t ruminate on emails when you’re hopping over wet roots. You can’t spiral when a kingfisher torpedoes downriver right in front of you. Arkansas refuses to let you be half-here and that, right there, is the beginning of every poem.
When I moved to Arkansas, I thought I was just finding trails, but the longer I’ve lived here, the more I realize the landscape starts shaping not only my writing, but also my way of being. Sometimes I’ll be out on a ridgeline at dusk with the sky going pink and the forest rustling breath, and I’ll feel this tug, like the land is saying, Okay then. Let’s write. And I do. Not always well nor neatly, but faithfully.
AN INVITATION
Here’s the thing: you don’t need to be good at writing to write, you don’t need to understand trees to listen to them, and you definitely don’t need to know what a poem is to feel one forming in the back of your throat after a walk in the woods.
You just need to go outside. Let Arkansas do the heavy lifting. Let your mind wander. Pick up whatever you find on the trail — ideas, oak leaves, a bit of yourself you misplaced.
Then, go home and see what words stuck. That’s my entire method. That’s the whole miracle. Arkansas will take it from there.
An Arkansas Education
lines ALLEN SCHAIDLE
if arkansas has taught me anything,
it’s that the world doesn’t mind waiting
while I come to my senses
nebo will sit there all day,
arms crossed,
watching me huff and puff my way up
and the big piney
well, she’s got a personality of her own
some days she talks sweet,
slipping around stones
other days she slaps the banks
reminding me who’s really in charge
i’ve learned more from the ouachita ridgelines
than from most books i’ve read
and the trees are far better company
than half the people i’ve met
a delta gravel road will tell me straight
that I’m going too fast
a crow will cuss me out
for reasons it will not disclose
and the pig trail has shown me
the shortest distance between two points
is rarely the one worth taking
now and then a poem sneaks up on me
not because i’m wise,
but because arkansas ran out of ways
to explain something politely
so i take the hint,
write it down as best i can,
and thank the land
for putting up with me another day
if that’s not an arkansas education,
i don’t know what is
