WE ARE THE FUTURE: USING VOCABULARY FROM WALT WHITMAN’S DEMOCRATIC VISTAS MONDAY, JUNE 28, 2021 – FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021 9:00AM 455.00 Quantity: ADD TO CART Instructor: Patricia Jones Monday – Friday June 28 – July 2 9am – 12pm 5 sessions on campus This Workshop is designed to engage...
JUNE 23, 2021DANIEL NESTER “Still Life with Dirty Windows” by Lauren Camp In fact no one knew. Neither the after nor struggle. In fact, mouthfuls of suns worth of distance seemed what we’d remember of absence. All these underground languages, a bitter cup of flinty wind. What people said scrubbed...
The Terrain.org Podcast In our fifth episode of Soundscapes, we present Love Across Time: LISTEN TO PODCAST In this episode, a lively collection of Terrain.org artists consider love: love for each other, love for places, and love for the hard work of creating the world as it could be. After Sandra Steingraber and Taylor Brorby delve into...
Join Patricia Spears Jones in a discussion about the role of art in transforming the way we view climate change. The climate crisis threatens the survival of every species on Earth. Global warming currently impacts millions around the world, especially those who live in poverty. But to address climate change,...
On June 28th at 5:00 PM GMT-6, Taylor Brorby, Sandra Steingraber and Tamie Parker Song will be reading as part of Terrain.org‘s Reading Series. The event will be streamed live at the link below. I hope you can join us. Read more information and register here: https://www.terrain.org/events/terrainorg-reading-series-5/?fbclid=IwAR2i7DmBv7uBpWrBuhadNM2AWsRlixI4-NUEWzVwdZ3mK-VYZJzIMKpL-q0
After the Storm May Perpetual Light Shine – Patricia Spears Jones We have encountered storms Perfect in their drench and wreck Each of us bears an ornament of grief A ring, a notebook, a ticket torn, scar It is how humans know their kind— What is known as love, what...
Lauren Camp Emptiness Prayer for Agnes Martin Strewn heat lingers on the landscape, doing nothing and fills in the gaps with less and years and finally. In weeds, a flirtation of wind; slight shaking, promise. Light vaults again which is consolation, desert-full of its rows and spill. She in her...
Petra Kuppers, a poet, disability culture activist, and professor at the University of Michigan participates in an interview where she discusses humans’ relationships with their bodies can change the way one experiences the world. Listen to her interview where she discusses her personal perspective on this topic. Poet Petra Kuppers...
Cristina Eisenberg is an indigenous ecologist who has focused her career on studying bison and wolves. In this article about restoring the Great Plains ecosystem, Eisenberg contributes information on the importance of buffalo and how restoring bison populations could contribute to the fight against climate change. To read the article...
POETRY MAY 23, 202110:36 PM DISAPPEAR By Lauren Camp Back then, we each had the privilege of busy regret and before that, a question about flights or where we’d eat dinner, what time. Nothing of virus, only best butter and innumerable unisons. Desire. Each task was a choice and we strew...
Join us Saturday, May 29th, for the second reading of our Geographies of Justice issue in the About Place Journal. Geographies of Justice re-imagines the maps that divide us into the privileged and the disadvantaged, that value some lives more than others; work that exposes systems of medical, environmental, and...
The About Place Journal is now open for submissions for its new issue, When We Are Lost/How We Are Found! The submission guidelines can be found on the about place journal website under the submissions tab. Read the call to see how it questions whether we define the earth or...
Bellwort drapes its flowers upside down, like chandeliers. Kevin Koch explores the numerous plants that emerged for spring time in the Driftless Area, offering pictures and illustrative descriptions of flowers, ginger, prairie grasses and more. Kevin, Dianne and their friend, Dr. Tom Davis (an expert on plants and birds of...
This was originally posted on The Los Angeles Review. FICTION POETRY NONFICTION BOOK REVIEWS TRANSLATIONS SUBMISSIONS AWARDS ABOUT BUY LAR 2 POEMS BY LAUREN CAMP Prognosis In my end is my beginning. — T.S. Eliot My father is all at once. It is noon and widens further into another...
You don’t want to miss this live-streamed performance by the Eco-Writers of Today. Watch the recording of ‘Women Eco-Writers’ with Margaret Noodin, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Pam Uschuk, Petra Kuppers, and DJ Lee on YouTube now!
This excerpt was originally found on Brenda Peterson’s Website. Excerpted from the book “Wolf Haven: Sanctuary and the Future of Wolves in North America,” essays by Brenda Peterson, all photographs by Annie Marie Musselman. (Sasquatch Books) THEIR EYES FIND you first, often golden or dark-green and amber-flecked with a fierce and...
BEI Fellow DJ Lee was recently the subject of an article by Washington State University. By Nella Letizia, WSU Libraries Many of DJ Lee’s stories in Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots embody the powerful force of the Selway River that carves out a portion of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Idaho and...
This op-ed piece was originally found in the Chicago Tribune. “Do we detect the reason why we also did not die on the approach of spring?” — “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau,” April 6, 1856 This morning, as the spring rain taps on our backyard window, I’m thinking of...
This poem by Tammy Melody Gomez was originally posted on Knopf Poetry. In the anthology Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America’s Poets Respond to the Pandemic, editor Alice Quinn offers us a sample of our nation’s verse in a transformative moment. This piece, by the Texan poet Tammy Melody Gomez, reminds...
The following event was originally featured in the ArtsBoston. Part of BroadBand’s Latitudes virtual performance series, “Regie Gibson: Letter and Spirit: Here, Among the Americans…”, premieres Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 7:30pm EDT, followed by live talk-back event online. Streams March 25-28, 2021. Poet, songwriter, author and educator Regie Gibson’s...
This excerpt from The Radiant Lives of Animals was originally published on YesMagazine.org. An Indigenous writer describes how ritual is the entryway to connection and wholeness. In The Radiant Lives of Animals, celebrated Chickasaw writer Linda Hogan draws on ancient stories and traditions to consider the connection among human consciousness, the natural...
This poem was originally published in MomEggReview. Ann Fisher-Wirth Lebkuchen There is more and more I tell no one Jane Hirshfield Once a week, my mother brought me home to make Lebkuchen, my passion all that fall because it would ripen while I was gone and because it saved talking. I...
This article was originally published in usask.ca. Louise Halfe is a BEI Emeritus Fellow. Elder and USask Indigenous advisor receives appointment as Parliamentary Poet Laureate Elder Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer, a highly-renowned University of Saskatchewan (USask) advisor, mentor, writer and honorary degree recipient, has been appointed as Canada’s...
This news was originally published on InsideUCR. UCR author Allison Hedge Coke has been inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, or TIL. Founded in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and recognize distinctive literary achievement, this is the 85th year members of the TIL have inducted new members to join the...
Information for this event was originally published by the Saskatchewan Writer’s Guild. Come watch the live event featuring Emeritus Fellow Louise Halfe! Let’s Chat – with Maria Campbell & Louise Bernice Halfe START: JANUARY 28, 2021 – 7:00 PM TO: 9:00 PM Please join Carol GoldenEagle as she chats with Maria Campbell...
This post was originally featured on PennStateNews. ALTOONA, Pa. — Todd Davis, professor of environmental studies and English at Penn State Altoona, has released the 15th installment of his “Notes from the Allegheny Front” audio blog. The latest installment is titled “People who Change Our Lives.” Listen to the latest...
This story was originally reported on by Iowa State University.com. Throughout her vibrant career, Debra Marquart, Distinguished Professor, professor of English and Iowa’s Poet Laureate, continues to create engaging prose. Her passion for both teaching and writing has garnered new support from the Roger S. Hanson Faculty Support Fund in...
This article by Liam Heneghan was originally published in aeon. It is our sad lot that we love perishable things: our friends, our parents, our mentors, our partners, our pets. Those of us who incline to nature draw this consolation: most lovely natural things – the forests, the lakes, the...
Author Brenda Peterson showcases the power of music, and how it might heal our broken souls. The piece was originally published on Peterson’s website. We sing because hearing is the first and last human sense; we sing to blend our voices and find harmony in a world so often dissonant;...
This article was originally posted in Penn State News. ALTOONA, Pa. — Todd Davis, professor of English and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, has been nominated by two different literary magazines for the Pushcart Prize this year. The journal “Chautauqua” nominated Davis’ poem, “A Map,” and the journal “Natural...
Metta Sama’s poem, You Can’t Say Anything Anymore was recently featured in KorePress.org‘s Postcards to the Future Collection. Sama creates a powerful poem solely using common problematic remarks. #WhyWeCan’tHaveNiceThings I am terribly aggrieved about Atticus Finch being outed as a racist. I’d rather remember the good he did. Team...
The following poem by Drea Brown has been nominated by About Place Journal for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. at times it seems black life matters in death, and we die hard. this ain’t no lie. sometimes we see it coming, sometimes we go to sleep and never wake. then...
The following prose by Lisa Allen- Agostini has been nominated by About Place Journal for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. Cam couldn’t stop thinking of the girl’s perfect mouth. Perfect brown lips. When she laughed: the tender, moist, pink interior. Her straight, wide teeth like Altoids or really big Fresh’Ms....
The following poem by Marjory Wentworth has been nominated by About Place Journal for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. Whether it is morning And sunlight is seeping through Overlapping oak branches Bursting with bright leaves Or late in the day, after Rain has fallen and the scent Of spring...
The following poem by Sydney Epps has received a nomination for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. Is it a sin in this skin? No; it is a blessing See, the best teacher I had was this wrap Gifting a knowledge more potent than college A test that got y’all...
The following short by Vikram Ramakrishnan has received a nomination for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. One time Appa said the planet broke in half, and I looked down at the jagged line in the dirt he was pointing at and agreed, yeah, that’s a crack, but you think that...
The following poem by Margaret Noodin has received a nomination for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. Gimeme’igonaan omaa This place is our lullaby biidaabang ani bangishimong sunrise to sunset gimiwang ani gakijiwang. rainfall to waterfall. Gidayaangwaamimigonaan This place is our warning zegaanakwak ziibiskendamang storm clouds and sorrow manidoog manidoonsikaazowaad. spirits...
Lauren Camp was recently mentioned in an article published by Frontier Poetry. Lauren takes readers through her process of creating her most recent collection, Took House. What were the most joyful moments of Took House’s journey to publication? I began the poems that became Took House in 2005. My decisions about what would be...
Ann Fisher-Wirth’s poem “Corona Journal, Day 32,” was chosen by Terrain.com for their Letters to America Collection on the 2020 Election Day. Corona Journal, Day 32 A young stag at dusk, white tail flicking, eating flowers heaped on a raw grave, raises his head to watch us before he vanishes...
Author Brenda Peterson offers her insight into the Trump Presidency, as well as the continuing wage divide between classes. Read her thought-provoking essay now! The Pathology of Privilege: Trump as Once or Future King Poor whites are not privileged–a note on the arrogance of many the rich By Brenda Peterson ...
Lauren Camp was recently mentioned in an article published by RDR News. Christina Stock makes her recommendations on the best way to spend an evening; A comforting meal with a comforting book. By Christina Stock In these past months, since the pandemic hit the state and forced us to...
Read this review of Scott Russell Sanders’s “At the Gates of Deep Darkness” by Tom Montgomery Fate. Originally published by The Christian Century. The artist at the end of the world Scott Russell Sanders’s essays balance ecological despair with the promise of human creativity. by Tom Montgomery Fate September 24, 2020 In...
Todd Davis was recently the subject of a Penn State News article surrounding his recent spoken word poem. Altoona professor’s blog features ‘A Promise of New Life in the Coming Year’ ALTOONA, Pa. — Todd Davis, professor of environmental studies and English at Penn State Altoona, has released the 14th...
Read this review of Lauren Camp’s “Took House” by Jennifer Levin. Originally published by Santa Fe New Mexican. Took House by Lauren Camp A few lines of poetry came to Lauren Camp as she stood outside at dusk. She doesn’t see well at that time of day, when the...
Author Ann Fisher-Wirth reminds us of the importance of literature and community when times are at their most challenging. Read her newly published essay now! But What If We Started Listening? by Ann Fisher-Wirth For the past couple of years, I’ve been feeling like a deer in the headlights of...
Kerry Trask was recently mentioned in an article published by Herald Times Reporter Manitowoc Jacob Blake protest: ‘So many people have forgotten how to be human and how to love one another’ Alisa M. Schafer Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter MANITOWOC – A small crowd of protesters gathered at the...
Dear friends, comrades, colleagues, We invite you to join us next Friday for this summer reading, the third in our Practices of Hope series. Find out about a clay egg, micaceous Pueblo pots, kitsune foxes, past life flyovers, an alien’s microscope, an FBI mystery around a father’s death, a planet broke...
“Juneteenth” by Kathleen Sweeney is a collection of beautiful images. These images help bring more attention to how our society is changing for the better. If you weren’t able to go to a protest, these pictures will take you there. Check out more of her work at her website Kathleen...
Lauren Camp along with Kimberley Quiogue Andrews was recently in a joint interview with Ruben Quesada. Both talk about their journey as poets. Originally posted by Kenyon Review Poetry Today #16: Death and Optimism Ruben Quesada July 28, 2020 Poetry Today is a series that celebrates poetics and aesthetics—the composition, look,...
Read this review of Ann Fisher-Wirth’s “The Bones of Winter Birds” by Stephen Black. Originally published by The Hopper The Bones of Winter Birds by Ann Fisher-Wirth Terrapin Books, 2019 Reviewed by STEPHEN BLACK The Tibetan practice of Tonglen requires the practitioner to breathe in the pain of others and...
BEI Senior Fellow, Patricia Spears Jones, had her poem “four” published in The Brooklyn Rail. Read it here! four By Patricia Spears Jones Black lives pandemic protest (vaccine) I want a tree house, the Hollywood kind—huge, luxurious Built with a really soft bed and paneless windows for ventilation and...
BEI Emeritus Fellow, Linda Hogan, was recently featured in Book Riots American History Summer Reading List, Check out the original article here! An American History Summer Reading List Nancy Snyder Jul 20, 2020 With the hopefulness and optimism of pre-pandemic summers, I composed a summer reading booklist. Historical fiction mixed...
BEI senior fellow, Annie Finch, will be featured in the Bangalore Poetry Festival. Check our the original article published in The New Indian Express here. In new rhythm Published: 21st July 2020 03:46 AM | Last Updated: 21st July 2020 03:24 PM by Vidya Iyengar BENGALURU :The fifth edition of...
“Look into / the distance,” says the speaker, “Where we are in / the distance, in the line where / grasses meet trees. We may be / here standing at the window / or standing at the edge.” In Marcella Durand’s The Prospect, perspective is everything. In conversation with 18th...
Allison Hedge Coke’s poems “Viscera” were recently published in World Literature Today. Viscera by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Photo courtesy of the author for Rachelle 4/27/2020 Our moms were widows before they met our fathers. Their hair blue-black, their hands already chapped, caressed by Inglis die-cast tooling Bren light machine guns,...
Lauren Camps’ new essay focuses on what gets her through these difficult times. Original article provided by Ecotone Magazine Planting in the high desert is about compromise. What can stand firm through careening wind? What can handle summer’s bubble-wrap heat? Aside from a brief delirium with utterly wrong choices, for...
BEI Emeritus Fellow, Todd Davis was recently awarded the Midwest Book award. Check out the original article here! Altoona professor’s poetry collection wins Midwest Book Award ALTOONA, Pa. — Todd Davis, professor of English and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, has won the Midwest Book Award for his poetry...
“Abortion is health care,” says the doctor in Sylvia Ramos Cruz’s appropriately titled poem “The Doctor Speaks: Abortion is Health Care.” But while this doctor may see the logic in abortion practice because she understands the “science, ritual, real-life consequences of practicing medicine,” many individuals and groups around the globe...
Lauren Camps “Took House” was recently named Editors Pick for World Literature Today. Read this beautiful review of her book by World Literature Today Took House by Lauren Camp by Daniel Simon Lauren Camp Took House Tupelo Press I will speak of this wind . . . of the seams of desire. —Lauren...
“I thank the bowl of my hips,” says the speaker, “I thank the soft edges of my skull / my sternum, big bone presses down / my liver wraps itself around and breathes out toxic / smooth wood and green upholstery . . .” Part furnished room, part garden, part...
BEI Emeritus Fellow Regie Gibson recently appeared on the Art, Life, and Shit podcast With Josh Friedman discussing Shakespeare, the Three P’s and The Talk. Listen below!
BEI Emeritus fellow Tom Montgomery Fate was originally featured as a guest author in The Daily Herald. Looking for truths, comfort in ‘the gospel of this moment’ By Tom Montgomery Fate Guest columnist 6/15/2020 1:00 AM I retired from the classroom two months before the pandemic hit. Just in time...
BEI Scholar Kerry Trask will be signing books on June 20th. Check out this article from The Herald Times Reporter for more information! Kerry Trask to sign books at LaDeDa Books & Beans June 20 ‘Fire Within: A Civil War Narrative from Wisconsin’ by Kerry A. Trask. (Photo: Provided) Kerry Trask,...
Debra Marquart, BEI Emeritus Fellow, was recently on Iowa Public Radio’s show, Talk of Iowa. Listen here!
Brenda Peterson publishes a new essay called “Backward Christian Soldiers” which originally appeared on Tikkun. In this essay, Brenda Peterson looks at the connection between social justice and religion. Backward Christian Soldiers By Brenda Peterson | June 10, 2020 The only thing I miss about my Southern Baptist childhood is the music—the melancholy...
BEI Scholar, Kerry Trask will be running for State Assembly. This article originally appeared in SeehaferNews.com Trask to Oppose Tittl for Assembly in November by Lakeshore News A retired History professor from UW-Manitowoc has announced that he will be a candidate for the 25th district State Assembly seat in Madison....
Regie Gibson, BEI Emeritus fellow, was recently interviewed on TNC Radio. Listen to it below!
Debra Marquart, BEI Emeritus Fellow, originally appeared on Washington County Pilot-Tribune & Enterprise Meet Iowa’s poet laureate (and former rock-n-roller) By Jeff Morgan, Iowa Culture Wire In 1980, Debra Marquart had a promising career. The 24-year-old North Dakota native was shooting to stardom as a singer in a band and...
Debra Marquart, BEI Emeritus Fellow, was recently on Iowa Public Radio. Listen below!
Ann Fisher-Wirth, BEI Senior Fellow, was recently featured on Earthtalk on the Poetry and Planet Podcast! Read original article here. Ann Fisher-Wirth Enchants With Environmental Studies In Verse Ethan Goffman Ann Fisher-Wirth has lived in Germany, Pennsylvania, Japan, California, and Virginia; she has been in Mississippi since 1988. Her sixth...
DJ Lee, BEI Scholar, in The Lewiston Tribute! Read the original article here. Following a story’s path Memoir explores Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness By MICHELLE SCHMIDT mschmidt@inland360.com There are places that don’t belong to us to which we find ourselves connected, often in ways we don’t understand. For DJ (Debbie) Lee,...
BEI Emeritus Fellow, Debra Marquart, recently wrote for the HPR Contributer. Read the original article here. ON THE EPHEMERALITY OF THINGS: THOUGHTS ON THE DEMISE OF A SMALL LITERARY PRESS by Debra Marquart marquart@iastate.edu A few years ago, I was giving a talk at the Fargo Public Library about researching...
BEI Scholar, Liam Heneghan’s Blog, 10 Things Wrong With Environmental Thinking, was featured in The Irish Times. Below is the except about Liam’s Blog in the article, “Getting out into nature with a good blog”. Click here to read the rest of the article. 10 Things Wrong with Environmental Thinking...
Book of poems by Altoona English professor named finalist for book award April 29, 2020 ALTOONA, Pa. — Todd Davis, professor of English and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, has published a sixth book of poems, “Native Species,” which has been named one of three finalists for the Midwest Book...
Lauren Camp, BEI Senior Fellow, was recently on KUNN’s All That Jazz. Listen here! Poetry…In A Time It’s Needed Most Sat 4/25, 12p: Carol Boss talks with 4 New Mexico poets about the need for poetry in times of uncertainty. Joining her for poetry and conversation is Albuquerque poet laureate...
BEI Senior Fellow, Ann Fisher-Wirth was recently featured on Ole Miss University of Mississippi News website. Click here to view the original article! Grant to Help Expand Environmental Studies Program UM English professor receives National Endowment for the Humanities funding APRIL 29, 2020 BY SHEA STEWART OXFORD, Miss. – A University of Mississippi English...
“If we called abortion ‘miscarriage,’ or maybe ‘optional miscarriage,’ would it be more beautiful?” —Nicole Walker Safe abortion should be an option available to all women, but as they are in the search for legitimate providers, many people declare the fetus to already be a human, to already possess a...
Lauren Camp’s Poem “Red’s Shrewdness” was published in the Columbia Journal on March 31, 2020. Read the Columbia Journal Here. “Red’s Shrewdness” by Lauren Camp “Silence is so accurate.”—Mark Rothko That winter when winter was thick as a knot, Rothko sat sluggish in long-johns and warm black socks, eyes plagued...