For 17 years the Black Earth Institute has provided art that gives voice to hope and better ways of living together. Patricia Monaghan, my late wife, and I founded BEI in 2004 to have art focused on social justice, centering protecting the earth, and a broadly defined inclusive spirituality. We...
This article was originally published by LynnBorton.com. “Having those stories that encourage children’s awe [and] curiosity about the world around them, that they know they are having an experience of nature in the city … is going to be pretty important.” ~ Liam Heneghan How do the stories we read...
This article was originally published in Inside Riverside. UC Riverside Distinguished Professor Allison Adelle Hedge Coke has been named a Legacy Fellow by the California Arts Council, awarding her the 2021 Individual Artist Fellowship. Hedge Coke is one of 182 recipients — the first cohort of individual artists the California Arts Council...
Mary Swander, former Iowa Poet Laureate and current executive director of AgArts, a non-profit designed to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts, announces the creation of The Great Amish Belt Loop Bad Poetry Contest. The contest is run through “AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land,” a podcast...
To donate to the campaign, click here. On November 11th, 2012, Black Earth Institute co-founder Patricia Monaghan died. On the ninth anniversary of her death, we ask for your support in helping us continue and grow her vision. BEI provides a sanctuary to artists who seek justice, protect the earth, and inclusive...
This poem was originally published in the Journal of the Plague Years. Will we abolish the police department. It’s hard to resolve. The world clings to the takeover of flyover states with financial incentives. Rude laws are laid down with terrible choices. For sale signs go up. People are somehow...
We are nominating artists from our two 2021 issues of About Place Journal for the Pushcart Prize. We published Geographies of Justice and When We Are Lost/How We Are Found. Here are the nominees from When We Are Lost/How We Are Found, selected by editors Amanda Reavey and Claudia Savage. ...
We are nominating artists from our two 2021 issues of About Place Journal for the Pushcart Prize. We published Geographies of Justice and When Are Lost/How We Are Found. First, here are the nominees from Geographies of Justice, selected by editors Alexis Lathem and Richard Cambridge: Claudia F. Saleeby Savage...
On October 9th, current and emeritus Black Earth Institute fellows came together to share their craft. Originally intended as a private gathering, we found ourselves so inspired by the work that we felt it worthy to pass this reading on to you all. We hope that their words will inspire...
It is with great honor that we announce that the following pieces have been nominated for Best of the Net, an online collection of the best pieces on the internet… Poetry .chisaraokwu. When God Sat In Enugu, We Wondered Who We Were Danielle Wolffe Hair Care as an Act...
It is with great honor that we announce that the following pieces have been nominated for Best of the Net, an online collection of the best pieces on the internet… Fiction House of Fraser by Mahnaz Yousefzadeh Non-Fiction Wake up, this is history by Carlo Rey Lacsamana Poetry...
This article was originally posted in its entirety onto The Michigan Daily. As part of the “Toward an Anti-Ableist Academy” conference hosted by the University of Michigan’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion this month, a panel of five faculty members from the UM Initiative on Disability Studies (UMInDS) met virtually on Tuesday to...
We are so excited to launch the next About Place Issue: “When We are Lost/How We are Found.” We think this issue speaks to restoring ourselves to the earth and overall healing. We hope you will join us in celebrating these artists’ eclectic, daring interpretation of the theme. Let us...
A participatory zoom-based event that will Livestream as well. We recommend joining us in Zoom. Richard Cambridge’s Poets’ Theater takes us to Kingston Jamaica where we explore the creative community on the island. Kingston Creative is a nonprofit arts organization started in 2017 by a team of three co-founders who...
The following poem is an excerpt from Marcella Durand’s newest book To husband is to tender. If you like what you read, make sure you check out the rest of her collection here! the bird husband (O my shadow of myself ) the bird husband only perches at the window and...
In May of 2022, Fellow Pam Uschuk will be debuting REFUGEE, a collection of poems through Red Hen Press. Luckily for you, she gave us a small taste of what we can expect to see in the upcoming collection! Please enjoy her piece “Weather Change.” WEATHER CHANGE for Terri Harvey...
Writing the Future: Climate Change, the Pandemic and Beyond with Pam Uschuk Saturday, October 16, 2021 – 9:30am to Saturday, November 6, 2021 – 11:30am Register here. Saturdays: October 16, 23, 30 and November 6, 13, 9:30am-11:30am Meetings will be in the Poetry Center Alumni Room 205; limit 12 students....
Photo by Silas Jaeger from Pexels. Recently, Emeritus Fellow Marcella Durand, informed us of an outstanding event hosted by Cecilia Vicuña entitled Insectageddon. Marcella will be involved with the event throughout September, but we thought, “why not promote Insectageddon now?” The following post was originally published on TheHighLine. For more information...
In case you were unable to join us in our live reading, take solace in the knowledge that we’ve got it up for you now! Check it out below, and subscribe to our About Place Journal Youtube Channel to make sure you never miss one of our readings!
The following essay was written by Teow Lim Goh. It was recently featured in the new BEI Edition, Geographies of Justice, and will be read on our Saturday, August 14th Reading series. Home Lands What does it mean for an immigrant to be at home? Home, we are taught, is...
The following essay was written by Nicole Walker. It was recently featured in the new BEI Edition, Geographies of Justice, and will be read on our Saturday, August 14th Reading series. The Shell Game My friend Bruce told me there were entire orchards out here but all I see are...
The following poem is a piece by Robbie Gamble. It was recently featured in the new BEI Edition, Geographies of Justice, and will be read on our Saturday, August 14th Reading series. King Phillip Motor Inn Posted on an offramp billboard near where Route 2, undulating across north-central Massachusetts, narrows...
On Saturday, August 14, at 8PM ET, we invite you to join us in our Live Reading Series for Geographies of Justice. We are so excited for you to watch this truly special group of writers. You won’t want to be anywhere else! Join us on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81736193517 For more...
A collection of Poetry by Liza Katz Duncan. These poems were recently featured in the new BEI Edition, Geographies of Justice, and will be read on the Saturday, August 14th Reading series. Love Song: I wanted to be surrounded by water Tonight, at the end of the hottest summer on record...
Join us Saturday August 14th at 8pm EDT for the third 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...
The Shell Game NICOLE WALKER My friend Bruce told me there were entire orchards out here but all I see are mesas. There is no sign of water on any of those mesas’ surfaces. I’m not sure where those trees he mentioned would grow. But then, maybe I’m not even...
A new essay from Debra Marquart about her journey to becoming a writer is out and available for us all! She delves into her past and the writers she looked up to as guides for inspiration in her own work. Read it online in this issue of the Humanities North...
Zoom Somatics in Four Poems BY PETRA KUPPERS · PUBLISHED JULY 22, 2021 · UPDATED JULY 22, 2021 The following collection of poems on Zoom somatics during COVID-19 quarantine is the tenth piece in the 2020 Visions: Imagining (Post-) COVID Worlds series. This series aims to reflect on the uneven impacts of the “pandemic year” and...
On THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2021 AT 5 PM CDT – 9:30 PM CDT Arts for Art is awarding Amina Claudine Myers with the Lifetime Achievement Award at Pioneer Works in Red Hook. Patricia Spears Jones will be reading a few poems that night. Get tickets ASAP! Lineup, tickets, and Schedule...
A Partial List of Here and Far Lauren Camp Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one. —Federico García Lorca Acres of weeds to our view and every minute needs reminding that we haven’t yet been erased. A birdcage floats over a scumbled sky. Just another day...
Lone wolf goes radio silent OR-93’s signal was last transmitted from San Luis Obispo County in April. Photo of gray wolf OR-93 taken in Oregon after waking up from sedation. Photo courtesy of Austin Smith, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, radio contact...
Listening to Manage the Year (Thelonious Monk) — Poetry by Lauren Camp He begins with only a shadow of the toil to tell He begins with not even and underfoot makes a slip and wandering Begins by lifting a bruise Begins with the airsound of an uncommon question or a thorn...
Earthworkers | Thick In The Throat Honey Portland, Oregon-based duo Thick In The Throat Honey (Claudia F. Saleeby and John C. Savage) began in 2007 at The Atlantic Center for the Arts. Morphing the traditions of jazz, spoken word, experimental music, chants, and devotional intoning, the duo has performed at music and...
ISSUE SIX ARCHIVE ABOUT SUBMIT NEWS MUCH BY LAUREN CAMP Photo credit Bob Godwin Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press). Her poems have appeared in Witness, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal and The Los Angeles Review. Honors include the Dorset Prize and...
La Bloga A great review of Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, published by Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts and co-sponsored by the Black Earth Institute. This is a defining collection. La Bloga is the world’s longest-established Chicana Chicano, Latina Latino literary blog. Las Blogueras Los Blogueros Click...
person place thing with randy cohen Menu Skip to content Menu SKIP TO CONTENT HOME ABOUT RANDY UPCOMING SHOWS SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST SIGN UP FOR UPDATES ARCHIVE CONTACT 357: Patricia Spears Jones Posted on June 26, 2021 by RANDY COHENLeave a comment One way to describe art is to note that it has...
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...
