Wildest Dreams

Since 1970, the year that Margaret Renkl ’84 turned 9, we have lost 3 billion birds in North America. To her, details like these—conscientious, critical, maybe even apocalyptic—are not factoids filed away, but symptoms of a fracturing, tenuous relationship between humans and nature.

Across a prolific writing career that includes three books and hundreds of columns for the New York Times, environmental destruction becomes a form of injustice. From the degradation of America’s wetlands, to the ecological cost of Valentine’s Day flowers, through wit and wisdom she urges readers to take action before it’s all gone.

“These natural cycles I had always found so reliable, so trustworthy and so reassuring, are no longer reliable,” said Renkl. “When I was younger, it felt like whatever turmoil, whatever concerns I was facing, the bluebirds were still going to build their nest. I can’t make such assumptions anymore.”

Renkl is only a few months removed from the book tour for her latest release, “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.” Published in October 2023, the book is a week-by-week examination of the nearby natural world, indoors and out. Beginning on the first day of winter, she meditates on changing seasons, adjustments of weather, and the migration of wildlife as metaphors for her own life.

“My hope is to encourage people to get outside more, to listen to the birds and learn the names of the wildflowers. Paying attention to nature has a way of calming the mind and settling the soul.”

Paired with 52 exquisite illustrations by her brother, the artist Billy Renkl ’85, the book was a way for her—and by extension, the reader—to find in nature a peace that is too often absent from the human world. Those who find peace in nature can’t help falling in love with it—and, hopefully, will work a little harder save it.

“My hope was that people would read it one week at a time as the seasons unfolded—that they would read about what’s happening in my yard and be inspired to go outside and look at what’s happening in their yard, or their local park, or in the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. A lot of people are reading it that way, and it’s really wonderful to see that happening.”

Renkl has always found solace in the natural world. One of her favorite things to do as an Auburn student was to head out to the agriculture fields and watch the cows, or wander the woods and dirt trails where forestry classes studied.

“I was just a few steps away from campus, but it felt like I was in a really rural, separate place. I’ve always just thought of nature as the place where I belonged.”

Her senior year at Auburn she took an environmental biology class—a subject she didn’t yet understand—and it awakened her to what humans were doing to the planet, a message that colors her worldview to this day.

She lasted a semester at the University of Pennsylvania before homesickness for the Southeast spurred a transfer to the University of South Carolina, where she met her husband and earned a graduate degree in creative writing. They moved to Nashville where they taught English and started a family.

An aspiring poet, Renkl published a short collection, “The Marigold Poems,” in 1993. Already, her proclivity toward nature was in full bloom. Though she would later switch to prose, the musicality of language and careful choice of words remains.

While raising three children she freelanced for national magazines and edited the book section of the Nashville Scene, a weekly newspaper. In 2009 she became founding editor of Chapter 16, the free literary website of Humanities Tennessee that covers the state’s literary community.

In addition to promoting authors, books and literary events, Chapter 16 under Renkl’s tenure also published interviews with noted celebrities like former president Jimmy Carter, the late Georgia congressman John Lewis and bestselling author David Sedaris. Under her tenure, Chapter 16 earned Humanities Tennessee the prestigious 2012 Schwartz Prize for public humanities programs from the Federation of State Humanities Councils.

After a decade at the helm, as well as by now a weekly contributor for the New York Times, she stepped aside a month before the publication of her first book, 2019’s “Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss.”

In “Late Migrations,” nature becomes a character itself, evoking memories of bygone days or used as metaphors for personal experience. The title comes from a profoundly personal experience—replacing her vegetable garden with milkweed, the only plant where monarch butterflies hatch—to hopefully stall their impending extinction.

“I am old enough now to have buried many of my loved ones, and loss is too often something I can do nothing about,” she wrote. “So I lie awake in the dark and plot solutions to the problems of the pollinators—the collapse of the honeybee hives and the destruction of monarch habitats—in the age of Roundup.”

Since 2017, her Times columns have given her a wide audience and a national reputation. But it is a demanding responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. Like the changing seasons, she recognizes the time will come for something else.

“Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined writing a weekly column for the New York Times,” she said. “I don’t know how long I’ll want to do it, but I’m grateful for the chance to write about the things that matter most to me, especially the vulnerability of the natural world, for such a large audience. That’s truly a gift.”

On August 7, Margaret Renkl will speak at a convention for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, alongside her brother Billy, to discuss “The Comfort of Crows” and her reasons for writing it.

“My hope is to encourage people to get outside more, to listen to the birds and learn the names of the wildflowers. Paying attention to nature has a way of calming the mind and settling the soul. So when we work to save the natural world, we’re working to save ourselves, too.”

By Derek Herscovici ’14