Nature, especially the parts that are untamed, provides great inspiration for writers. Here are some tips for young poets (and older ones, too!) from Robert Hass, River of Words co-founder and United States poet laureate from 1995 to 1997:

• Get something down on paper. Waiting for inspiration is like waiting to be asked to dance. Inspiration will come more often if you show you are interested.
• Pay attention to what’s around you. Teach yourself the names of some of the birds and trees in your neighborhood. Learn the names of the stars overhead. Look at the way light falls on your street at different times of day.
• Pay attention to what you’re feeling. A lot of poetry has to do with discovering what you feel. Sometimes, if you notice what you’re feeling, a phrase or an image for it will come to you out of nowhere. It will be a place to start and the result may surprise you.
• Pay attention to your own mind. No thought is too weird for poetry. And everyone has weird thoughts all the time. 
• Say your poems out loud to yourself until you’re pleased with how they sound. A poem isn’t finished until it’s pleasing to your ear. 
• Read lots of poetry. It will give you ideas about what poetry can do, techniques you can try. And real feeling will put you in touch with real feeling. Someone else’s originality will make you feel yours.

And here are some tips from our own Watershed Explorer curriculum:

• If you get stuck on one thing, go to another. Don’t erase—you may want that word or idea later.
• Sound out difficult words and don’t worry about spelling. You can look up the spelling later.
• If you want your poem to have a title, wait until you’ve written the poem.The title may be a word or phrase from the poem, or something completely unrelated. Wait and see!
• Try a collaborative poem. This works best in a group of five or more. One person creates the poem’s first line, the second person builds on that line to create the next line, and so on.