Taylor Brorby and Ice Cube press released Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience. Produced in less than a month, Coming Alive, as a call-to-action extended essay by Taylor Brorby, introduced by climate expert Bill McKibben (350.org), along with an afterword by nationally known author / environmental activist Kathleen Dean Moore. Additionally, the project is...
[Photo Credit: C. Finnegan] Brenda Peterson wrote Women and Abortion: “Don’t Give Up Your Power,” a Huffington Post article. Peterson takes you back to pre-patriarchal history to explore concepts of femininity and masculinity; a history that sheds light on society’s current views of abortion. “But abortion is not just about women claiming their feminine...
Mary Swander, a poet laureate from Iowa and BEI Emeritus Fellow, was interviewed for an episode of My Fulfilled Life. Swander speaks about her journey through family farming, addressing social justice, connections to food and her two plays, Vang and Map of My Kingdom. Click here to listen to Mary Swander’s full interview....
Cristina Eisenberg, the Chief Scientist at Earthwatch Institute and a BEI Emeritus fellow, wrote a Huffington Post article about “The Role of Science in the Trump Era.” Eisenberg calls on citizens, both scientists and non-scientists, to take a firm stance in supporting science based research. Eisenberg wrote an additional Huffington Post...
The Boston Public Library held an interview with the creators of Shakespeare to Hiphop and talks about the exhibit, “Shakespeare Unauthorized,” which makes The Bard’s world come alive. The interview includes Regie Gibson, a BEI Emeritus fellow and co-creator of Shakespeare to Hiphop, Marlon Carey, co-creator, and Alison Keslow, the bassist. The trio talk...
Taylor Brorby, a BEI fellow, shares his Letter to America, as a guest editorial on terrain.org. Brorby talks about growing up in the Dakota’s in an economy stimulated by the fossil fuel industry, its environmental impacts and his strive for a better future. Click here to read Taylor Brorby’s Letter...
Ann Fisher-Wirth, a BEI fellow, was invited to write a poem for the state of Mississippi for Imagine Our Parks with Poems Project. Ann’s poem, titled Vicksburg National Military Park, is currently featured here on the Imagine Our Parks with Poems website. To celebrate the National Park Service Centennial, the Academy of...
Taylor Brorby, the co-editor of Fracture was interviewed by Betsy Johnson-Miller for Collegeville Institute and Bearings Online to find out more about the book. Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America (Ice Cube Press, 2016) features the voices of over 50 poets, writers, and journalists on the complex issue of...
Todd Davis, a BEI fellow, was featured on Pittsburgh’s NPR program Prosody on November 19th, which airs every Saturday morning on station WESA 90.5 FM. Listen to the podcast here online or through iTunes. Reading from Winterkill, his most recent book, Davis answered questions from Prosody’s host, Jan Beatty, and discusses his writing process...
GOOD NEWS: Patricia Spears Jones, a BEI Senior Fellow, has been chosen for the Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of the Small Presses 2017. Adding to her accomplishments, The Pushcart Prize series is a highly honored literary project in America. As one of the last surviving literary co-ops from the 60’s and 70’s, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers...
Todd Davis is featured as the artist of the month for Image, a journal of the arts, faith & mystery. Image writes that Todd Davis is, “an ideal observer, he is open to the unexpected—in creation, in the human unconscious, and in the ancient stories of the Christian faith—and he invites us to see the...
Edited by Todd Davis The Black Earth Institute is proud to present our newest issue for About Place Journal! Take a look inside to find … Animals Among Us The editors’ note proclaims: In probing the blurred lines between species and in seeking to recognize the animal as other and the self...
Linda Hogan wrote Why we are Singing for Water- In Front of Men with Guns and Surveillance Helicopters published in YES! Magazine. This vivid article stresses the need for protecting healthy waters and explains the struggles of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation fighting for their treaty rights. Linda’s descriptive writing...
Taylor Brorby, a BEI Fellow, environmentalist and co-editor of the book “Fracture,” spoke at the 2016 North Dakota Library Association’s annual conference in Dickinson, ND. Brorby, “called on librarians to help foster political discussion around all issues, notably environmental, to open more people’s minds.” Brorby talked about fossil fuels vs renewable...
Join us on October 8th, for an evening of poetry, dramatic readings and stories with the Fellows of the Black Earth Institute, hosted by the Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, WI. The art presented will speak to both timely and universal issues from the work and changes the fellows...
Michael McDermott, co-founder of the Black Earth Institute relates the history, mission and work of BEI. This video was part of a welcome to a retreat of woman writers hosted at Brigit Rest, center for BEI.
On June 14, 2016, BEI Fellow Ann Fisher-Wirth, spoke in The Big Read: Seat in the Shade Poetry Series at the University of Georgia. A slate of readings, lectures, hands-on events and more will intertwine the work of Robinson Jeffers with the culture and landscape of the South. This was an...
“The late poet and novelist, Jim Harrison (1937-2016) once said: “Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak, if you could teach your soul to speak.” He might easily have been talking about Todd Davis, whose latest collections, In the Kingdom of the Ditch (2013) and Winterkill...
Three Poems By Lauren Camp on June 29, 2016 in Poetry, Spotlight http://www.culturalweekly.com/lauren-camp-three-poems-2/ Lauren Camp, BEI Fellow, works in the confluence of visual, musical and literary worlds. She is the author of three books of poetry, This Business of Wisdom (2010) and The Dailiness (2013), winner of the National Federation...
Check out this new article written by BEI Scholar Cristina Eisenberg, of the Huffington Post, titled “End of an Era for Iconic Denali Wolf Pack?” In 2012, to learn about carnivore ecology in Alaska and celebrate completing my doctorate, my family and I visited Tom Meier, who led Denali National...
On August 28th, Seamus Cashman will do a three hour open air public reading in St Stephen’s Green in central Dublin from 1.30-4.30pm, of poetry and prose works by writers and others represented by memorial busts or with other connections to Stephen’s Green, including Yeats, Joyce, Thomas Kettle, Rabindranath Tagore, Patrick...
Ann Fisher-Wirth will be part of The Big Read: Seat in the Shade Poetry Series, in Athens, Georgia, in June. http://hendershotscoffee.com/event/the-big-read-seat-in-the-shade-poetry-series/
Lauren Camp has a nice interview up at The Strong Letters: https://waleowoade.wordpress.com/2016/03/19/lauren-camp/ and a radio interview at http://www.santaferadiocafe.org/sfradiocafe/2016/04/22/lauren-camp/
Paul Nelson interviews Judith Roche: http://paulenelson.com/2016/05/24/judith-roche-interview/
Melissa Tuckey has two poems in Kenyon Review’s “Literature in the Anthropocene: Nature’s Nature” edition this month: http://www.kenyonreview.org/journal/mayjune-2016/index/
In March 2016, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposed delisting the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in portions of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. As mandated by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Service opened a 60-day public comment period. They received a deluged of responses—63,000 in...
Mystified by meter? Or just looking for a new kind of poetic inspiration? This summer Ani will be offering a live, interactive 3-week webinar on Rhythms of Poetry. Learn about the diverse powers of an ancient poetic path for integrating body and spirit, idea and intuition, self and community—and find your own personal rhythmical signature. Class includes...
Metta Sáma’s the year we turned dragon (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs 2016) is the first third of a larger book that follows a group who travel with “Leader” across the globe in order to build a new world, one that is the other side of human, that is dragon....
The same night I first started reading “Fracture,” a new literary anthology about hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”), I happened to hear Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.) on CNN, endorsing the practice as a “viable part of our energy policy.” “Fracking isn’t all bad,” Franken claimed, because, he argued, the production of...
Patricia Spears Jones is a Brooklyn-based poet and author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems from White Pine Press, which is a 2016 Finalist for the William Carlos Williams Prize from the Poetry Society of America and seven other poetry collections and chapbooks. Her works are anthologized widely...
“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.” — Linda Hogan Chickasaw poet, BEI Emeritus Fellow, novelist, essayist, and environmentalist Linda Hogan will receive the 2016 Henry David Thoreau Prize...
The 2016 Creative Capital Awardees have been announced, and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs (MFA Writing 2008, California College of the Arts) has been named an awardee in the Literature category for her project Global Studies, a collection of poems and flash prose that mimes the textbook structure to examine the ambiguity of history. According to the Creative Capital...
Greetings, All Recently, the astrologist Rob Breszny wrote his annual year-end letter, which began: In 2016, I invite you to have an improbable quest playing at the edge of your imagination: a heroic task that provokes deep thoughts and noble passions even if it incites smoldering torment . . ....
The Djerassi Resident Artists Program has provided over 2,000 artist residencies, and currently serves approximately 90 artists each year, since 1979 – all free of charge. It is the largest artist residency program in the Western United States and considered among the best in the country. Each year dozens of...
“The Poet’s Market” is for poets looking to be published. It is a resource that contains lists of publishers as well as interviews and advice from widely published poets.
John T Price read this at the Black Earth reading at AWP last summer and brought the house down. Like good satire it hits a tender spot.
Congratulations to current BEI fellow Todd Davis who will be releasing Winterkill, a book of poems, in January/February of 2016. It will likely be available for pre-order in October or November.
“Write A House is delighted to announce ten finalists for the second round our groundbreaking writing residency, in which we renovate a formerly vacant home in Detroit and give it to one talented writer—for keeps. We will celebrate the winner on October 2 at a showcase event featuring the celebrated...
In his article, BEI’s Regie Gibson discusses boredom and a piece of wisdom he received from his teacher in 5th grade: “Mister Gibson, do not make yourself into a shapeless sponge waiting for the world to wet you.” Click here to read article.
The workshop is in environmental life writing, or place-based autobiography, offering the pleasures of discovering the profound embeddedness of the self in its world. It is envisioned as a hybrid, combining readings in literature with a creative writing workshop; participants may write either creative nonfiction essays or prose poems, focusing...
We are excited to welcome all of our new fellows and this recognition of Ann and all of her important work is great to see! Click here to read the full article.
“Foster’s imaginative work glories in language’s ambiguities, discords, emotions and logic—she allows that imaginative thrall to explore race and gender and political dysfunction. Foster has taken from one work of art and found correspondences in a Harlem apartment, a New Orleans childhood, early morning television commercials, a lover’s sated face,...
Hiraeth Press will be publishing So Ecstasy Can Find You, Elizabeth Cunningham’s third collection of poems, on September 15, 2015. A book launch will be held at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY on 9/15 at 7:00. Click here for more details on the book launch Click here to read more about the...
” “The Endangered Species Act, one of the most powerful environmental laws globally, has directly prevented extinction of hundreds of species, such as the bald eagle,” said Cristina Eisenberg, lead scientist at Earthwatch, U.S.A and author of two books on carnivore ecology. “In this era of rapid environmental change and...
“Last Wednesday on a day that represented my break from teaching, I walked about the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The day had begun soft, gray, moist, but once I got to the garden around 2 p.m. the sun began to break out a huge bright smile over this very walkable feast...
To see the full list and read about Louise, click here.
Ann will be speaking on a panel as well as presenting work from her ongoing collaborative poetry/photography project Mississippi as part of a plenary session at the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), which will be held June 23-27, 2015, at the University of...
The Black Earth Institute is privileged to announce 2015-2018 Fellowship Awards. We are humbled and delighted to have such a wonderful group of artists dedicated to the mission of BEI, to have art serve the causes of spirituality, the earth and social justice. All of these fellows have not only...
“Many contemporary poets use meter and rhyme, and write in traditional forms such as villanelles, but they often do so selectively, for sizzle, like Chinese spices in California cuisine. Annie Finch’s new book, Spells: New and Selected Poems, collects work by a poet who finds in the meters of English...
Cristina Eisenberg, BEI Scholar/Adviser, warns us about the dangers of gutting the Endangered Species Act. This foul action is the leading edge of attacks on the Clean Air Act and what little protection of food safety by the FDA. Darkness descends upon the land. Read it here.
Debra Marquart, BEI Fellow, has a new book of poetry, “Small Buried Things” about items collected by a doctor that had been stuck in people and a long one about the damage to the earth and communities affected by fracking. A North Dakota native, Deb has seen first hand this...
The first, “El Lobo’s Uncertain Future,” discusses the trials and tribulations of the Mexican Grey Wolf’s return to the wild. March 23rd-30th marks the 17th anniversary of their recovery after becoming completely extinct in the wild in 1980. There are a slew of social-political reasons that show their struggle is...
“Judith Roche’s fourth collection of poems, All Fire All Water, consists of four parts. “Rivers Have Memories,” the first part, explores nature and our relationship to it. Poems include fish and birds, bees and wolves, storms and the changing of the seasons. Drawing from the Salish Sea, where Roche lives,...
Launched by The Global Peace Initiative of Women (GPIW) in 2008, the Contemplative Alliance is an inter-spiritual movement grounded in contemplative practices and approaches with the goal of heightening awareness and generating actions to address the critical issues of our times. The Alliance seeks to accomplish this by creating an...
Have you ever wondered the statistics on wildlife crossing bridges over interstates and highways? Cristina Eisenberg’s latest post on HuffPost tells us how they have done in Banff, “the crown jewel of the Canadian national parks” A step that can make radical change in this one crucial area shows what can...
Besides being the lead scientist at the Earthwatch Institute and a BEI Scholar Cristina Eisenberg has dedicated her life’s research to wolves and predators effects on ecosystems as well as fire. Check out her latest post in HuffPost on the Yellowstone wolf pack and how they have adapted to adversity...
Check out Patricia’s poem, “Belle de jour” featured at the Ashbery Home School here.
“Island Press is excited to announce the Rewilding Adventure sweepstakes, a once in a lifetime chance to join noted scientist Cristina Eisenberg for a field excursion to track wildlife including wolves, grizzlies, wolverines, lynx and cougars. From classroom discussion to hiking in Yellowstone National Park, the winner will learn not...
“CHICAGO —(ENEWSPF)—February 13, 2015. Farmers, musicians, ecologists, photographers and artists will gather at the DePaul Art Museum in coming months to discuss environmental issues during the “Rooted in Soil” exhibition, which examines the human connection to soil. Events are free and open to the public and will be held at...
Waldorf College will host Mary Swander, poet laureate of Iowa, on Thursday, Feb. 19, as part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series on campus. A light dinner reception, hosted by Practical Farmers of Iowa will be 6-7 p.m. followed by a performance of Swander’s short production, “Map of my Kingdom,”...
A North Dakota native turned writer and professor will lead a writing workshop in Rugby next month. Debra Marquart – a English professor and teacher in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Environment program at Iowa State University – will lead writing workshops titled “Our People. Our...
The Black Earth Institute will award 6 fellowships for 2015-2018 term. BEI, now 10 years old, is dedicated to supporting art in re-forging the links between spirit, earth and society. Art can create new space for changing minds and the world. Artists have played this role and BEI is dedicated...
A story about a strong and enlightened woman who shaped much and many. BEI fellow Elizabeth Cunningham was given room to grow in Olga’s school and then room literally as daughter-in law at High Valley Center. BEI was hosted at High Valley for a retreat and we all have a...
Conversations around the Green Fire are 10-20 minute original videos from in-depth interviews, short presentations, and bonus Green Fire footage. Connect with ideas from leading thinkers, as the Center for Humans and Nature continue the dialogue spurred by the Green Fire documentary. The Emmy award-winning documentary film Green Fire: Aldo...
Based on a photo of two summer squash by Edward Weston that hangs in the Yale Art Gallery, the poem was originally commissioned for an exhibit of poems inspired by works in that collection. Here is the poem. Conversation Edward Weston’s “Squash,” 1936 “Delve for me, delve down, delve past...
A poem inspired by his daughter goes nicely in front of a saxophonist Stan Strickland on Radio Boston. The poem titled, “Jazz People” is about little people who live inside instruments and come to life when the instrument is played. A month earlier Regie was broadcast live from the TEDxBoston...
(Dawson)We have on the phone BEI fellow and scholar, author, professor, and Iowa’s Poet Laureate, Mary Swander to talk to her about her insights on performance. At this year’s Black Earth Institute annual gathering of fellows and scholars we will be focusing on all types of performance and their place...
Today we are here at Brigit Rest, the home of the Black Earth Institute in Black Earth, Wi and we are speaking to one of the original fellows of the Black Earth Institute, Dr. Deborah Wood Holton from DePaul University School for new Learning.
I am somewhere between Ghana and Colorado, gushing over the last volume of Scalped, a crime noir set on a fictional Indian reservation. I discover several Ga, Asante, and Twi phrase books in a shop at Elmina Castle. I find the 1964 Pocket Poets edition of Negro Verse edited by...
Since I am an African American (although I prefer Black American) and I write poetry, I assume my poetry is African American. I know, so essentialist. But, my family has been in the United States for at least seven generations–mostly in the South (Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana)—the Delta. To me,...
