Writing Nature’s Cycles

At this workshop, we travel to any setting that strikes our imaginations—indoors or out.* On our travels, we’ll use observations from the natural world to find parallels in our own life cycles—and in the human condition. For more literary inspiration, we’ll study luminous examples of contemporary eco-poetry. Together, we’ll look at the ways in which poets can be changemakers, bringing our heightened awareness of interconnected life cycles to the page—and to the world.

*Please let us know in advance if you have particular physical needs (e.g., wheelchair access, proximity to a bathroom, etc.), and we’ll plan accordingly.

If This Stone Could Talk

This workshop features the physical landscape. For the original class, we toured the Stonington Granite Quarry. For the upcoming class, we’ll likely trek through another nature sanctuary (please contact us for details). Drawing upon these experiences of natural land formations, we’ll travel from the past to the present, writing poetry imbued with naturalness. A generous packet of images, poems, and writing prompts will be provided.

The Elements of Eco poetry

Here, we explore poems and images of Air and Wind, of Water and Fire. All the while, we’ll be grounded in representations of Earth in art—and in our writing. This workshop will help to draw parallels between patterns in nature and patterns in your own writing—your interpretations of nature. You’ll write to prompts—and an inspired series of natural images.