Themes in Turtle Island

The three poems I read were Mother Earth: Her Whales, Tomorrow’s Song, and The Wild Mushroom. Each of the poems I read incorporated the environment, which was the common theme connecting the poems. Each poem illustrated different parts of the environment. Every view of the environment supported Snyder’s message of conservation and the value of nature.

In Mother Earth: Her Whales, Snyder discusses various places around the world that are struggling with environment issues. This reinforces the theme of this poem which is the impact that people are having on their environment worldwide. In the poem he uses the term “robots” to describe the leaders of these countries who are trying to make decisions. They don’t have a true understanding of the environment, and are causing great damage to many species. Snyder argues that all living things are people. He says “The People. Standing Tree People! Flying Bird People! Swimming Sea People! Four-legged, two-legged people!” (Page 48, Lines 48-52) Here Snyder is arguing that everything is living and deserves the same equal treatment and opportunities. He also states that the wrong people are making the important environmental decisions.

In Tomorrow’s Song, the theme was the future of the environment. Snyder discusses how the animals, plants, mountains, and rivers don’t get a “vote” in the goings on around them. He is specifically referring to the USA in this poem. The country will fail if nothing regarding the environment changes. He illustrates this by suggesting that even common squirrels will become rare, if they even continue to exist. Citizens must utilize nature’s tools and abandon the old ways of fossil fuels if there is to be a bright future concerning the environment.

In The Wild Mushroom, the theme was nature’s importance to man. Throughout the poem the speaker and a friend are searching for mushrooms in the forest. Mushrooms are small and seem unimportant. In the last stanza he says, “For food, for fun, for poison, They are a help to man.” (Page 46, Lines 27-28) By writing this poem, Snyder was trying to emphasize that even the smallest of things are important in nature and to man. Without the resources the environment provides, humans may not survive.