Poetry in a Time of Climate Crisis: A Generative Writing Workshop

Sunday, April 30, 1-4 pm
1301 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC

Cost: $25

Space is limited. Register by Friday, April 29.
Scholarships are available. Submit an online request by 12 pm on Friday, April 28.

Image of Melissa Tuckey. wearing a long sleeve purple shirt. She has a serious yet kind expression_ wears her gray hair tucked behind her ears.

ABOUT THE WRITING WORKSHOP

During the second world war German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote, “One cannot write poems about trees when the forest is full of police.” Here we are now, in the age of environmental crisis, when our woods are filled with police, and our very air, water, soil, and climate are under attack. How do we respond to this challenge in our poems?

In this generative workshop, we’ll look to poems that hold both environmental consciousness and acknowledgement of who is most at risk. We’ll write furiously and with a lot of love towards what sustains us. We’ll recognize interconnections. We’ll witness, grieve, and rage, and our work together will ultimately bend toward hope. Bring your “witness eye” and favorite writing implements.

The workshop is open to all writing levels and to writers of poetry and prose.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP FACILITATOR
Melissa Tuckey is a co-founder and former board member of Split This Rock who serves as the Coordinator of Split This Rock's Eco-Justice Poetry Project, editing Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, forthcoming from University of Georgia Press. Tuckey is author of Tenuous Chapel (May 2013), selected by Charles Simic for the First Book Award at ABZ Press, and Rope as Witness (chapbook: Pudding House Press, 2007). She's a fellow at Black Earth Institute. Other honors include a Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown Winter Fellowship and artist awards from Ohio Arts Council and DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Missouri Poetry Review, Ecopoetry Anthology, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, and Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing, among other places. Tuckey has a background in community organizing and non-profit development, and holds an MFA from George Mason University. She currently lives in Ithaca, New York, where she teaches writing and works as an editor and writing coach. More information can be found on Melissa's website at http://www.melissatuckey.net

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP LOCATION
The nearest metro station is DuPont Circle. The building is wheelchair accessible. A volunteer will be available at the door as the building locks on weekends. Participants are encouraged to arrive on time. Those who arrive late may need to text or call 202-445-0536 to be let in.

MORE INFORMATION
Contact us at ecojustice@splitthisrock.org or 202-787-5210 should you have any questions.