Dear Paul,
I hope this email finds you well! I’m staring out my window in Tacoma watching folks take pictures of the glass art bridge across the way. Always nice to see such curiosity.
I wonder if I may ask you for a favor. I am teaching a community class on eco-poetics at the end of this month from my living room. It’s a 6-week course that will borrow & develop forms from nature for writing, and we will also talk about poems that explore this tradition. I’ll take a few classes outside, but it will especially be a reading & writing class in Capitol Hill.
The favor is: if it feels appropriate & good, will you please pass the description & web site below along to anyone you think might be interested in the group? I’m still getting networked in Seattle, so my reach is still a
bit small, and I suspect this will be a very special class. It’s an area of study that sure means a lot to me.
I appreciate you thinking it over and best wishes to you and your family,
Janie
Eco-Poetics: Poems to Save the World
Instructor: Janie Miller in Capitol Hill← New Instructor!
Tuesdays 7-9 pm
March 26-April 30
6 weeks—$215
I’m interested in the dash between eco and poetics, resting like a magnet between the study of ecology and the concerns of poetry. There’s room for magic in that dash, a space for poetry to give voice to all that is alive and mysterious in the nonhuman world. This is a critical time for the planet, and in this 6-week class we will study Eco-Poetics through conscientious reading and explorative writing. We will become witnesses to the ever-evolving land and its creatures. We will concentrate on poetic techniques to help release the magic in your lines. Several classes will be taught “plein air” style, taking our writing to several sacred areas of Seattle, other classes will meet traditionally. Classes begin just after Spring Equinox, Tuesdays from 7pm-9pm, March 26 – April 30.
About Splabman
Poet & interviewer Paul E Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Since 1993, SPLAB has produced hundreds of poetry events & 600 hours of interview programming with legendary poets & whole systems activists including Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, Diane di Prima, Daphne Marlatt, Nate Mackey, George Bowering, Barry McKinnon, José Kozer, Brenda Hillman & many others. Paul’s books include American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) (2018) American Sentences (2015) A Time Before Slaughter (2009) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (2013). Co-Editor of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (2015), 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards (2017) and Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill (2019) Make it True meets Medusario (2019), he’s presented poetry/poetics in London, Brussels, Nanaimo, Qinghai & Beijing, China, has had work translated into Spanish, Chinese & Portuguese & writes an American Sentence every day. Awarded a residency at The Lake, from the Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, CA, he’s published work in Golden Handcuffs Review, Zen Monster, Hambone, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2014 Robin Blaser Award from The Capilano Review, he is engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia and lives in Rainier Beach, in the Cascadia bioregion’s Cedar River watershed.
