The Sea, The Sea – 2: Close Reading on the Beach
Dr Rachel Murray, Literature and the Environment (University of Bristol)
Something that makes English studies distinctive is ‘close reading’. This is true at school and university and there’s lots of guidance out there about how to do it, how to teach it, and what ‘close reading’ involves, specifically. This is just one – and a good one.
Can we read the environment closely? What would that involve and how might it be helpful to us in making the natural world more real and present?
Rachel Murray, who teaches English at the University of Bristol, shares here her experience of
CLOSE READING THE ENVIRONMENT
Something that literary studies has to offer when it comes to thinking about the environment is a set of methods that is distinct from, say, the data-driven approach of climate science.
One of these methods is close reading. Close reading, in the traditional sense, involves a micro-attentiveness to what is on the page. The eye might zoom in on something as tiny as a punctuation mark and consider what its presence (or absence) might mean.
Looking closely in this way helps us to slow down and tune into what is in front of us – attending to things that we might otherwise overlook. It helps us to recognise, as readers, that what is small and seemingly negligible might be just as important as what is big and overt. Close reading is also a playful and hopeful activity – it suggests that there is always more to be found if we remain curious and open enough to look for it.
This method guided a field trip activity I undertook with a group of final-year English students to a rocky beach (pictured) on the North-East coast. Together we close-read a series of poems about rockpools – including Isabel Galleymore’s observation of a limpet grazing beneath its ‘modest party hat’. Then we turned our attention to the pools themselves.
Guided by our reading, we tuned into slight movements and interactions between creatures, observing the subtle differences between these micro-environments – all different, each with their own moods. We were not there to count or survey these creatures – or scoop them up on our nets. We were there only to look closely and appreciate openly – to slow down and notice – in the way that poets had taught us to do.
These are the poems that Rachel and the students read on the beach that day:
Sylvia Plath, ‘Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbour’ (1958)
(Mussel Hunter At Rock Harbor – poem by Sylvia Plath | PoetryVerse)
Judith Wright, ‘Rockpool’ (1985)
(Poetry Rockpool Judith Wright Summary and Analysis – TCA Notes – this does contain the text of the poem as well as an analysis)
Jen Hadfield, ‘Daed-traa’ (2008)
(Daed-traa poem – Jen Hadfield)
Sarah Howe, ‘[There were barnacles…]’ (2015)
(There were barnacles… – Forward Arts Foundation)
Isabel Galleymore – ‘Limpet & Drill-Tongued Whelk’ (2019)
(Isabel Galleymore 2016 Basil Bunting Poetry Award First Prize)
Galleymore’s article here is also tremendous:
Here, one of Rachel’s students, Ursula Glendinning, reflects on rockpools, and seeing them via poems:
Remembering Rockpools – Centre for Environmental Humanities
