Becoming Cascadian is a retreat happening mostly in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood May 31 through June 3. It’s a community-building event designed for poets, artists and bioregionalists to gather, share strategies, discuss our role as humans in this time of ecological crisis and end-stage empire.
What: Becoming Cascadian
When: May 31 – June 3, 2018
Where: Rainier Beach (Seattle)
Cost: $80, plus meals.
Who: 10-30 participants, featuring keynote poet Andrew Schelling. Poetry writing experience is not necessary. Some student/low income scholarships are available. Advance registration required $80 via Paypal to pen (at) splab (dot) org. Deadline May 29, 2018.
This event made possible by Poets & Writers.
Andrew Schelling is a poet, translator, and essay writer. He has published twenty books, including seven of translation from India’s early poetry. His own work encounters the rhythms and features of the natural world, as well delving into linguistics. Recent titles are From the Arapaho Songbook and the folkloric study, Tracks Along the Left Coast: Jaime de Angulo & Pacific Coast Culture. Schelling lives in the Southern Rocky Mountain Ecoregion and teaches at Naropa University
Agenda: We will gather for Zen Meditation at the Seattle U Eco-Sangha, at 7pm on the 31st at St. Ignatius Chapel just east of 12th & Spring. Meet for dinner the following night in Rainier Beach, then have an opening circle, during which time participants may offer breakout sessions related to the area at the intersection of bioregionalism and poetics. As in Cumberland later in the summer, we gather to share strategies, discuss our role as poets and bioregionalists at this time of ecological crisis and end-stage empire, and to support one another in our efforts to create the deepest gestures in response to this situation and how that relates to Cascadia. Schelling’s Saturday keynote talk/public discussion happens from 2-4 at Red Wing Café in Rainier Beach. Free admission and open to the public. Dr. Jason Tetsuzen Wirth will lead a tour of Kubota Garden Sunday morning. There will be a closing circle Sunday afternoon and a reading by Schelling and some participants Sunday night at 5pm at Open Books.
To register contact Paul Nelson at pen (at) splab (dot) org or at (two-oh-six) 422.5002. You can also Paypal $80 to the pen (at) splab (dot) org address.
Thanks to co-sponsors like the Seattle U Eco-Sangha, Humanities Washington, Red Wing Café, Cascadia Now, Poets & Writers and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.
Andrew Schelling FREE Keynote Talk, Saturday, June 2, 2018, 2-4pm at Red Wing Café:
The Practice of Outside
For poets and bioregional visionaries, a practice of outside will take on several meanings. First should be the colloquial sense of outside, simply “outdoors.” Learn something of your bioregion—Cascadia, the Southern Rockies, or any place else—by getting outdoors. Then, as an inhabitant of the S. Rocky Mountains, for me to visit Cascadia as a poet means I will arrive as something of an outsider. I will explore significant differences between the water-rich, heavily forested, maritime regions around Puget Sound, and the arid high country where I live. I’d also like to explore some of the familiar elements or medicine powers we share. Certain trees (Douglas fir), many of the charismatic large animals (cougar, black bear, coyote), and a storehouse of story and song that may reach back to the last glaciation (“the Girl Who Married a Bear”). With these shared elements in sight, I’ll look at territory our poems share.
Schedule:
Thursday, May 31, 2018
7pm – Zen Meditation at Seattle University Eco-Sangha
901 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
Friday, June 1
6pm, Dinner
7pm – Opening Circle/Introductions
If you have a breakout session to propose, you can take a minute to propose it here. You are welcome to bring a printed version of your breakout idea.
Saturday, June 2
10a – 12N – Breakout Sessions
12N – 1pm – Discussion of sessions
1pm – 2pm – Lunch
2-4pm – Andrew Schelling presentation The Practice of Outside, with discussion moderated by Paul Nelson, at Red Wing Café
9272 57th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118,
presented by Humanities WA.
6pm – Dinner, discussions led by Schelling, Nelson.
Sunday, June 3
10a – 12N – Tour of Kubota Garden with Jason Wirth
12N-1pm – Lunch
1-3pm – Closing Circle
5pm – Reading with Schelling, selected participants, Open Books
2414 N 45th St, Seattle, WA 98103
Participants are asked to attend all events if they register for the weekend.
