Nature and Identity in the Poetry of Bart Wolffe

The poetry of Bart Wolffe, the self-exiled white Zimbabwean writer, exposes the role of the environment and life experiences in shaping identity. For Wolffe, nature signifies refuge, tranquillity, and harmony; it is a sanctuary, more accommodating than the violent and harsh human society. In this paper, I advance the argument that a reading of Wolffe’s poetry shows that he uses nature to construct his identity and belonging and as a means of self-definition, that is, of trying to make sense of himself. But his project of belonging and identity construction in postcolonial Zimbabwe is somehow complicated by his whiteness or positionality.