1. TeachableMoment
  2. Climate Change Poetry for Teaching

Climate Change Poetry for Teaching

Sarah Outterson-Murphy

Climate poetry, primarily written by real teens, serves as an excellent model for students’ own protest writing. A poem might feel less daunting than an entire novel or short story, or you might choose to pair poems with a longer text. Like the rest of this list, these works focus on the social aspects of climate change. They are arranged in reverse chronological order.

Current Issues

These texts could be used for whole-class reading, and could enrich a larger unit on climate change or even lead to students researching and creating their own artistic explorations of futures altered by climate change. Questions for discussion follow each listing.

For more see:

 

“Earth Eyes” by former US poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, is available in her full-length collection Call Us What We Carry (2021), buildings on her earlier poem “Earthrise” to explore the interconnected losses of racism and climate change–both of which are symptoms of humans’ greed. Exploring youth’s perspective on environmental apathy, she writes, “Generations / of the past order, be our recruits, not our rescues. Oh, / how we want our parents red & restless, as / wild & dying for a difference as / we are.” 

  • Questions for Discussion: Do you think it’s true that young people care more about the earth than older people? Why do you think this is? How can we ensure all people care about the earth?

 

“Let's Make More Minutes Count” by Solli, a 14-year-old Australian slam poet, appeared in 2019 as a video performance. 

  • Questions for Discussion: How does Solli use internal rhyme and rhythm to convey her ideas? What connections or feelings came up for you as you heard this poem?

 

“On Climate Denial” by high school senior, Jordan Sanchez, appeared at the first Climate Speaks event in 2019, where NYC teenagers performed their own original climate poetry. Any of the poems from this event can serve as powerful examples for young writers, such as those by Elizabeth Shvarts and Andreas Psahos. 

  • Questions for Discussion: Why do you think people deny climate change? What are some of the differences and similarities between NYC and San Juan in Sanchez’s poem? Why do you think she uses these images? 

 

“Break Free” by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a teenage activist, was published as the title track of his rap album in 2018.

  • Questions for Discussion: How does Martinez connect his Indigenous identity with his climate justice fight? What thoughts, feelings, or connections came up for you as you heard this song?

 

“Dear Matafele Peinem” by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner was published in Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (2017). The poem contrasts fear for her child’s future with hope that change can happen. Other relevant poems by Jetnil-Kijiner include “Utilomar,” “Tell Them,” and “2 Degrees.” 

  • Questions for Discussion: What ideas is the mother arguing against in this poem? How does this poem use metaphors to convey its emotional weight? What feelings did you have while reading the poem?

 

“The Big Picture” by Ellen Bass (2007) appears most recently in All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson (2021) and also online. It discusses species near extinction, powerfully tying them to imagery of human bodies. 

  • Questions for Discussion: Which do we usually tend to care more about: animals or humans? Why does the author focus on her son’s pulse?

 

“A Vision” by Wendell Berry (1999), available online here, imagines the emotional and physical weight of an imagined ecological future. 

  • Questions for Discussion: What’s a line from the poem that resonates with you and why?

 

“For the Children” by Gary Snyder (1992) appears online. The poem makes the abstract, rising levels of carbon dioxide into a concrete mountain we must climb in order to reach safety on the other side. 

  • Questions for Discussion: What’s a line from the poem that speaks to you and why? 

 

“From the People in the Houses of Earth in the Valley to the Other People Who Were On Earth Before Them,” by Ursula Le Guin, from her 1985 novel-in-fragments, Always Coming Home (University of California Press, 2001). This poem is a message from the Kesh, a post-apocalyptic hunter-gatherer-gardener people of the future, to us in the present, imagining how even “in your time when everything was fuel [...] we were among you” (405). Similarly, “The Inland Sea” describes the “old cities” of modern civilization, drowned under risen seas, as a world of “old souls” roaming, “hungry for birth” (390-1).  For a quick glimpse into the broader culture of the Kesh, read “An Exhortation from the Second and Third Houses of the Earth” (76). 

  • Questions for Discussion: What emotions do these poems express toward our present world vs. the future world? What thoughts, feelings, or connections do you have about this poem?