About the Series

This winter, at a time when, for many of us, so much of the natural world seems asleep, we’ll keep our inner fires going by exploring how the voices of nature weave with our own daily lives. Each week, Danusha and James will share work by our guests, including poems and prompts, and together we’ll absorb the wisdom of visionaries, poets and healers to bring ourselves more deeply into relationship with each other and with the power and beauty of this rich planet we share.

Details

Beginning on February 4th, sessions will be held on Fridays from 10am-12pm PST / 1-3pm EST.  Kimberly Blaeser's session will be on February 25th.

Each session will begin with a talk with that week’s featured poet, followed by a discussion with Danusha and James, who will read poems, offer gateways into accessing your own creative treasure troves, and share accompanying prompts. For the last half hour of each class, they will answer questions from participants, and give further insights into the practice of poetry.

Before each session, a document with the poems and prompts that will be shared and discussed, will be provided to participants.

The series will be presented on Zoom. Video and audio recordings will be available to all participants within 48 hours of each session, and for two months after the course ends. Closed captioning will be available during live sessions and in video recordings.

Please join us for the journey!

The cost of the course is $300.

Registration for the six week course is available at this link: https://www.thepoetryofresilience.com/winter?fbclid=IwAR3yjpLSrumWiEdZWnF9-TSvwP3KAsgtr3kK_CVCv6dAI_-xSfkk996VkXg

(Lucille Lang Day, Kimberly M. Blaeser, Denise Low, Craig Santos Perez, Kimberly G. Wieser)

Indigenous peoples are those who’ve had the longest relationship with any given place. They have the deepest knowledge of the plants and animals, and they are the longest-serving stewards of the land, often for 10,000 years or more. Respect for the land is an integral part of indigenous cultures. The panelists will discuss what indigenous writers bring to the broader conversation of poetry concerning environmental preservation, ecosystem damage, and

climate change and read representative poems.

(LeAnne Howe, Kim Blaeser, Heid Erdrich)

Poet and prose writer Kimberly Blaeser will read from past and current work. Formerly the Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Blaeser is the author of five poetry collections including Copper Yearning, Apprenticed to Justice, and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor and MFA faculty for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Blaeser is founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets. Santee Frazier, visiting faculty in poetry in the MFA for Poets and Writers, will moderate a Q&A following the reading.

For registration and more information, follow this link to the event page:

https://fac.umass.edu/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=ASA22&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=

Join us for a morning of First Peoples poetry with American Indian poets Kimberly Blaeser, Elise Paschen, Mark Turcotte, and Gwen Westerman, moderated by poet Gordon Henry.

This reading will be dedicated to the work of Joy Harjo, United States Poet Laureate and editor of Living Nations, Living Words, an anthology of poems by American Indian poets reflecting on themes of place and displacement. The book is the companion to her online project Living Nations, Living Words, A Map of First People’s Poetry.

More information about registration here: https://www.newberry.org/04092022-first-peoples-poetry-reading-tribute-living-nations-living-words-project

Beyond the Expected Poem

A “successful” poem or series of poems sometimes traps us into repeating the formula.  How do we keep our poetry practice vital? If writing is inquiry, where do we look for unexpected questions that will enrich our poems? In this generative workshop, writers will set aside their comfortable habits and try new tools of inquiry, bend their forms and usual approaches to writing, and engage in unexpected “collaborations.” Our days will include writing exercises and prompts, discussion of excerpts from essays on poetics, and inspiration from the natural world. We will read a diverse range of poems as inspiration and with an eye on their architecture and method. As we share drafts and plan revisions, we will try to move beyond intention by following the energy of the image(s) and the detours of language. Participants should leave the workshop with a group of new poem drafts and a “bank” of ideas for further writing.

https://www.northwoodswriters.org/the-conference/faculty-workshops/poetry-kimberly-blaeser