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...
Mary Swander, BEI Senior Fellow, recently was featured in the Des Moines Register with an article written about her effort to bring information about COVID-19 to the Amish. Read the original article here or keep scrolling. In eastern Iowa, concerned neighbors take steps to ensure Amish get word about COVID-19...
BEI Emeritus, Todd Davis was recently reported to be a Book of the Year finalist by Penn State News click here to read the original post. Books authored by Davis and Murphy named ‘Book of the Year’ finalists Erin C. Murphy and Todd Davis IMAGE: PENN STATE March 23, 2020...
Debra Marquart, BEI Emeritus Fellow, was the featured poet on March 6th for the Poetry Hour from Studio 47. Listen in here!
Petra Kuppers, BEI Fellow, and author of new book of poetry “Gut Botany” was recently interviewed and written about for The Leader. You can read a copy of the article below, or read the original here. ‘Gut Botany’ presents poetry as avenue to exploring one’s own body and inner strengths Kirk...
Listen to BEI Senior fellow, Lauren Camp, on Poems For the People reading poems from One Hundred Hungers. Poems for the People is a podcast for readings of poems classical and contemporary selected by Mischa Willett, author of THE ELEGY BETA and PHASES. You can find the podcast here!
The three nominees are: Jacqueline Johnson, The Prairie Speaks; DJ Lee, Slime Redemption; J.D. Ho, The Tree with a Thousand Faces.
“I am delighted to announce the Pushcart nominations from About Place Journal: Dignity as an Endangered Species in the 21st Century, edited by me, CM Furhman and Maggie Miller. It’s always tough to make these choices. I wish we could have chosen many more pieces from the fabulous work featured...
BEI Scholar Advisor, Liam Heneghan’s essay, Reading Matters: Why You Should Read about Beasts with Your Children was published by 3 Quarks Daily: Science Arts Philosophy Politics Literature
BEI Senior Fellow Patricia Spears Jones’s poem, An American Haze, was published in Vox Populi: A Public Sphere for Poetry, Politics and Nature.
Catastrophe by the Sea is now out to excellent reviews. Watch this stunning book trailer of Catastrophe by the Sea, with artwork by Caldecott Award Medalist Ed Young. Enjoy!
Ann Fisher-Wirth has been awarded honorable mention for the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize for 2019. The prize honors Jake Adam York and a commitment to Alabama. Ann’s poem, At the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, looks at violence including lynching, and shootings centering on Lucille Clifton’s witnessing these and creating. History...
Read BEI Emeritus Fellow Brenda Peterson’s article in this issue of Tikkun below. Peterson is one of several featured authors who write about decolonization in Tikkun. Peterson’s piece, on page 92, is titled “Ugly and Underfoot: The Colonization of Animals”. This issue of Tikkun also includes Reader Responses to Peterson’s...
Editing literary publications is an opportunity to select art that can strengthen the values and direction for the future from wonderful people. At the recent AWP Pamela Uschuk, editor of Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, and a Black Earth Institute Fellow, organized a panel called “Art and Activism, Poetry...
The poem Moon for Our Daughters by Annie Finch, BEI Senior Fellow, was recently published on Poetry.org! Annie Finch is a poet, author, and performer; and has published more than twenty books, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems. Her incantational, mystical poems explore earth-centered spirituality, merging word, music, and ritual. She leads writing...
Taylor Brorby, Emeritus Fellow, was raised in North Dakota in a family enveloped in the coal industry. In this essay, Biting the Hand That’s Fed Me, he wrote for the Resilience Uncertain Future Forum, Brorby details in heartfelt language his journey away from coal to a leading position in the...
Elizabeth Cunningham, BEI Emeritus Fellow, recently contributed to the Feminism and Religion volunteer-project blog. The purpose of FAR is “to further feminist dialogue while nurturing one another’s work, even across our differences.” Using an excerpt from her book The Passion of Mary Magdalen, Cunningham writes her post “in remembrance of all the refugees...
As part of ASLE (Assocation for the Study of Literature and Environment) annual conference in Davis, California, June 2019, BEI Fellow Petra Kuppers co-led with poet Stephanie Heit a post-conference workshop, Tendings and Eco-poetic Disability Culture: Bodymindspirits of the Future. The workshop offered an artful space for engagement and resource-sharing,...
Congratulations to DJ Lee for submitting her book, Remote: Fifteen Years Through the Wilderness, to Oregon State University Press for print last week. DJ and her new book were chosen by the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) for the “7 Coming-Up Author Showcase”. The 7 Coming-Up event...
Claudia Savage is an Arab American poet, essayist, and performer; and is a member of the Portland-based performance duo Thick in the Throat, Honey. Her BEI project revolves around a book she is currently writing, “Metal Used for Beauty Alone,” which discusses the experiences of those affected by the Syrian refugee crisis....
Emeritus Fellow, Melissa Tuckey will be speaking at the 21st Annual Kateri Peace Conference! Historically, the Kateri Tekakwitha Peace conference has met to examine dangers posed by nuclear conflict, but this year there will also be a focus on the climate crisis. Based on the ideological model of the Iroquois,...
Emeritus Fellow, Patricia Spears Jones was recently asked to participate in the Southern Foodways Alliance’s annual project, Summer Field Trip. SFA is based at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and its mission is to “document, study, and explore the diverse food cultures of the changing...
Presented by Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth in collaboration with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Annual Modern Dance Festival in Fort Worth, TX is celebrating the legacy of Merce Cunningham this month in celebration of his 100th birthday. Within a 16-day window at The Modern, a variety of films,...
Cutthroat, A Journal Of The Arts and The Black Earth Institute are collaborating to publish an anthology of Contemporary Chicanx Writing. We are calling for poems and prose (short stories, flash fiction, hybrids, essays, memoir pieces). Submit up to 5 poems with a 100 word limit per poem, one prose...
BEI Fellow Jaqueline Johnson’s work uses creatively interweaving art forms; frequently, she turns to quilts and poetry to express emotions regarding current events and social injustices. Currently, she is creating a collection and curating an exhibit which explores in depth the modern relationship of the Black community with police forces,...
Congratulations to Alexis Lathem on her residency with the Marble House Project! The Marble House Project residency program focuses on the integration of conservation and earth-centeredness with artistic work, and encourages artists to forge community connections through their art. Alexis is using the residency to develop her project as a...
This week we are delighted to spotlight our Fellow, Petra Kuppers! Petra has pioneered the community performance project Salamander that “uses underwater photography, dry performance workshops, creative writing, clay work, and video… to find our disabled beauty emerging from the deep…” As a disability performance scholar, Petra has led...
Austin Smith lives in rural Illinois and is an acute observer of the world at hand. This poem is from his book Flyover Country, published by Princeton University Press. Cat Moving Kittens We must have known, Even as we reached Down to touch them Where we’d found them Shut-eyed and...
Debra Marquart BEI Emeritus Fellow recently was on Iowa Public Radio- listen here! Debra Marquart had not originally intended to become an acclaimed poet, a distinguished professor at Iowa State University, or Iowa’s next poet laureate. Marquart instead wanted to be a road musician, singing lead for a rock band...
STONECOAST MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING When and how did you first start to take yourself seriously as a writer? What enabled you to make this shift, and what marked the change? I was a performing musician before I became a writer. I had always been interested in writing and studying song...
By Mike Hoban Monday, May 13, 2019 Ramona Lisa Alexander as Circe and Brandon G. Green as Ulysses Lincoln, with Akili Jamal Haynes in the background in “Black Odyssey Boston.” (Photo: Maggie Hall) To call “Black Odyssey Boston” a retelling of the Greek myth of Ulysses “but with black people” would...
Between “Turquoise Door” and “One Hundred Hungers,” history can be home too By Ashley Clark | 05/10/2019 After growing up in New York and working in a range of professions from disc jockey to visual artist, Lauren Camp found a way to blend her art and poetry. Camp spoke with Arts and...
Donate to this amazing project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcfinch/choice-words-writers-on-abortion With reproductive freedom under unprecedented attack at the state and federal levels, it’s time to take back the conversation. Literature has always been at the forefront of profound shifts in human consciousness, and that’s the level of shift that is needed now. It’s time...
Louise Halfe—Sky Dancer—is a Cree poet and writer, Elder and teacher. Born in Two Hills, Alta., she attended a residential school as a child and has drawn on this experience to explore resiliency, reconciliation and the legacy of colonialism, in her poetry. One nominator interviewed her after the publication of...
Meena Alexander, a Consummate Woman of Letters I read and re-read Atmospheric Embroidery so that I could ask her something that would be of interest. But I did not get to ask those questions. Her answers are in the poems. The following is part of a series of essays and reflections published on...
Told through striking and vibrant mixed-media collages, Catastrophe by the Sea is a poignant story of redemption through empathy and compassion found in the most surprising places, and also provides a rich understanding of small creatures that live in a dangerous tidal zone. A lost cat roams the tide pools, pawing relentlessly...
She has received grants and awards from NYSCA, NEA, the Foundation for Contemporary Art, and the BAU Institute for residency at Camargo Foundation in France. She has been a fellow at Robert Rauschenberg Residency and at VCCA, Yaddo, and the Millay Colony. Get more information at the event contact the...
Seminar Notes #2 Contemporary Western scientific accounts of the peopling of the Americas have changed considerably in recent decades. Humans have been on this continent longer, had a vaster range of ecologies, and were more populous than was understood a generation ago. There have been, in other words, many ways...
The 6th Annual Longleaf Writers Conference Features Visiting Authors Rebecca Makkai and Brian Turner, Workshop faculty Matt Bondurant (Fiction), Wendy Rawlings (Fiction), Ann Fisher-Wirth (Poetry), Seth Brady Tucker (Poetry), and Diane Roberts (Creative Non-Fiction) as well as literary agents and special guests, including our fellows Gabriel Houck, Kara van de Graaf,...
Liam Heneghan on Moving Beyond ‘The Balance of Nature’ Listen Here! The ‘balance of nature’ is the most well-known idea from the discipline of ecology that has found its way into popular environmental thought. However, for decades, ecologists have been emphatically declaring that the idea of a ‘balance in nature’...
The Poetry Witch Little Book of Spells Available for pre-order here! In this micro-book, acclaimed “Poetry-Witch” Annie Finch harvests her Spells, spun at the intersection of magic, word, and world. These ritual poems invite readers to experience words not just in the mind, but also in the body and spirit....
Lauren Camp, BEI Senior Fellow, has two poems in the newest issue of Stone Canoe! Here is one of the poems:
Okay, who’s ready for a little poetry? Did I say ‘a little’? I meant plenty of good poetry to go around. To begin, in search of the divine in the daily, the selections in “Native Species” from Todd Davis, professor of environmental studies and creative writing at Penn State University...
Original webpage here April 04, 2019 – By Prescott College Recognized As Distinguished Alumna At Oregon State University Dr. Cristina Eisenberg has accomplished many things since attending Prescott College. She is the Ecologist and Chief Scientist with Earthwatch Institute, she published a book based on her...
Click here to hear Ann Fisher-Wirth’s Reading at the Meacham Writers’ Workshop at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Click here for the original webpage. 3/28/2019 by CHIVAS SANDAGE In the velvet of her voice—relaxed, Brooklyn-cool—audiences hear “the music of a southerner” with the “same deceptively casual tone” of the blues. Watching poet and playwright Patricia Spears Jones read her...
Sundress Publications announces the pre-release of Leah Silvieus’ collection, Arabilis. Through detailing her experiences with nature, religion, and violence, Silvieus finds that their underlying connections reveal much that goes unsaid. $1 from every pre-order goes in support of scholarships to the Tin House Summer Workshop that benefit immigrant writers, formerly incarcerated writers, or graphic narrative writers...
The Greenhouse So this is paradise, I would think When, in late winter, we stepped out Of winter and into spring. The greenhouse was glorious, But it was a rushed, undeserved glory. To go in was to be catapulted A month ahead and to leave The overwintering land...
Carrying Off the Ravens Lauren Camp Our quick jackets thrown against dust and we’re out to a patio, gradually looking at trees. I have two hours to teach these five young womento glory their woes and measure their blessings. We’ve left behind winter’s wide cobwebs and ditches. The lass next...
BEI Senior Fellow, Metta Sama, has new book of poetry is now available for pre-order! Swing at your own risk, structurally designed to swing from one subject to the next, from one lyric utterance to the next, concerns itself with unpacking myths of gender, race, sexuality and violence (specifically myths of...
March 22, 2019 The Chrysanthemums. Liège, 1968 by Ann Fisher-Wirth First marriage, first party, first apartment. I invited our boss the principal, and his wife, both from the States, who I wished would ask us over but who never did, so that sometimes I cried after lunch in the bathroom...
BEI Emeritus Fellow, Regie Gibson, recently did an in-depth interview Interlochen Center of the Arts- read below or click here for the original article. Literary performer and former National Poetry Slam Champion Regie Gibson was gifted his first dictionary at the tender age of seven by his loving uncle. His...
For months, five-year-old Meri saved her allowance until she had $12 in her bank, which she planned to give to the Center for Whale Research to help save the endangered Southern Resident orcas. While $12 is a lot of money for a kid, Meri was more focused on the joy...
With lines unseen the land was broken. When surveyors came, we knew what the prophet had said was true, this land with unseen lines would be taken. So, you who live there now, don’t forget to love it, thank it the place that was once our forest, our ponds, our...
Lauren Camp Marrow A ship in the bay. Stomped grass, all bluff against salt-moaned land. The delicate line true to a faltering, a history. Beneath sun-clawed clouds, I kneel to read the lugging claim of sand: tithing. The line never spills its significant ways, never lies ...
Sociologists have discovered a surprising fact. When a group of people are in an unfenced space, no matter how large, they gravitate towards the outskirts and leave the middle empty. On the other hand, in a fenced space, they will spread out and enjoy the use of the whole area....
We are offering 2 summer internships at Brigit Rest, 20 acres perched high on a ridge 30 miles west of Madison out in the beautiful Driftless Area of Wisconsin. If you are interested in working on land with a large organic garden, vineyard, small orchard, many acres of prairie and...
Submit your best work by April 1! Some of us work best on a deadline, so here’s a friendly reminder: Submissions to the Driftless Writing Center 10th anniversary anthology are due by April 1. We’re seeking submissions of new, unpublished work rooted in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, or Illinois, including poetry,...
You must not say I saw the sunrise. In bed past the time of the rippling light, lying in piles of sheets, dreaming what was dearest, the charm of a word waking me with a grid that’s never as occupied as worry and hours. What if undone my mind is...
Metta Sáma, BEI Senior Fellow, did a two-part poetry mini-interview series! Click here for the original link. Part One Metta Sáma is author of Swing at your own risk(forthcoming Kelsey St. Press), the year we turned dragon (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs), le animal & other creatures (Miel), After After/After “Sleeping to Dream” (Nous-zōt Press) and the web-book, Nocturne Trio (YesYes...
Linda Hogan, BEI Emeritus Fellow, newest essay, “Ancient Root” was recently published in Emergence Magazine. Click here for the original essay or read below! Ancient Root by Linda Hogan For Linda Hogan, hope lives where faith has fallen away. During an encounter with caged elephants, she experiences a wave of profound and startling love...
Check out the newest review of Liam Heneghan’s, BEI Scholar, book Beasts at Bedtime! Click here for the original post. Children’s literature as a natural wonder: How books introduce young readers to the environment By Stephanie Santillo There are two ways in which humans view the environment according to Dr. Liam Heneghan...
Audio Roundup: Black Poets Honoring Black Poets Posted Feb 19, 2019 In honor of Black History Month, Poets House invites you to spend some time listening to black poets who have spoken on the work and legacy of other black poets as part of our long-running Passwords program series. Here are...
Boys and Oil 1. We play army at Tyler’s birthday party. Cream the Carrier, Smear the Queer, King of the Hill—games boys on the prairie play to the swoosh of grass in afternoon heat. Something in the land pulls us towards violence. We tackle our friends, drive our hollow boned...
Recently, BEI Emeritus Fellow, Marcella Durand was featured in a blog post by Contemporary Poetry: A Site for All Things Poetry, Language, and Culture. Read the post below or go to the original page here. Marcella Durand I was reading the Durand handouts tonight, and I realized we don’t have...
OPEN HEART BY LAUREN CAMP His scar made him unlike the men who took me to begging, to bowling alleys on motorcycles, who threw off their boots to the corners. He had no last excuses. Our desert habitat juggled a thicket of cotton and spread flat or fluttered. We’d larked...
Mary Swander and her play Vang (which BEI is bringing to Madison on April 19th, 2019) were recently featured in the Huff post! Read the article below or go to the original article here. Iowa Laureate’s “Vang” Play Showcases Immigrant Farmers: Interview with Mary Swander In a week of turmoil over...
