Seeing Taiwan's environment harmed by pesticides and industrial pollution, Wu wrote a scathing critique in a poem called "Stop Them" in 1981: "The mountain forests are your bones, / But there are those who ceaselessly swing axes and cut them down, / Slowly, slowly paralyzing you.
隨著農藥氾濫、工業汙染，吳晟有感於台灣生態破壞日益嚴重，1981 年透過〈制止他們〉一詩提出強烈控訴：山林，是你的骨骼卻有人不斷揮舞巨斧、濫加砍伐逐漸逐漸癱瘓了你