We are thrilled to announce a seasonal workshop series with Tucson writer Gretchen E. Henderson, collectively entitled “Relational Ecologies: Writing with a More-than-Human World.” The workshops will take place seasonally on Saturday mornings and will be in-person at the Poetry Center. Course tuition will include a catered lunch and a conversation with a guest community organization or agency working in the area each workshop's focus. Initial offerings and a biography for Gretchen are below—stay tuned for registration details in future course seasons! The series is a sister effort to immersive short courses on Literary Ecologies taught by Gretchen at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia. Participants can take one Tucson workshop by itself, or grow a practice of relational ecologies between places over time.
Writing with Water: Finding Form in a Thirsty World
FALL: Saturday, October 28th from 9:30-12:30 (workshop) lunch from 12:30-2pm (Registration to open in the Fall 2023)
Human bodies are largely comprised of water, as is the planet. In the climate crisis, reports of aquatic catastrophes from droughts to floods increasingly swirl. Yet more than dying, water is life-giving, quencher of thirst, nutrient of seeds and soil, aquifer and river, wave and tide. In this writing workshop, we reimagine the liquid presence of water in our words—poetry, nonfiction, fiction, between & beyond—rippling between lines and sentences, paragraphs and poetics of place, even pulsing under our skins. This generative workshop inaugurates a seasonal series of workshops at the Poetry Center around natural elements to bridge ecologies.
Writing with Fire: Finding Form in a Burning World
WINTER: January 2024
Since time immemorial, humans have sat by firesides to heat and cook, sing and survive. In the climate crisis, reports of fires flame from forests across the Amazon to Australia and closer to home in the American West. Yet beyond destroying, fires light the dark, warm hearths, open seed and cone, and burn strong enough to smelt metal and stone. Our planet burns in its core. In this writing workshop, we reimagine fire in our words—poetry, nonfiction, fiction, between & beyond—kindling lines and sentences, paragraphs and poetics of place, even heating our hearts. This generative workshop is the second in a seasonal series of workshops at the Poetry Center around natural elements to bridge ecologies.
Writing with Earth: Finding Form in an Uprooted World
SPRING: March 2024
From dust to dirt, sediment to soil: what lies underfoot reflects the human condition. Amid over-extractions of the Earth’s diminishing resources, resilient seeds persist, even replenish. In this writing workshop, we reimagine the place of earth in our words—poetry, nonfiction, fiction, between & beyond—seeding renewable possibilities through lines and sentences, paragraphs and poetics of place, to unearth care for what may otherwise be trampled. Where language lies fallow, let’s tend to native seeds and even weeds that may grow. This generative workshop is the third in a seasonal series of workshops at the Poetry Center around natural elements to bridge ecologies.
Writing with Air: Finding Form in a Polluted World
Summer: July 2023
Breathing offers a natural rhythm to our lives. The element of air seems invisible yet charges our every act, thought, and word. In the climate crisis, as inspiration meets expiration, the vulnerable act of breathing amplifies winds of change from polluted atmospheres to Black Lives Matter to COVID-19 to each life and death across the planet. In this writing workshop, we reimagine the presence of air in our words—poetry, nonfiction, fiction, between & beyond—breathing life into lines and sentences, paragraphs and poetics of place, retuning our basic rhythm of being alive. This generative workshop is the fourth in a seasonal series of workshops at the Poetry Center around natural elements to bridge ecologies.
Gretchen Ernster Henderson writes across environmental genres and poetics of place. Her fifth book, Life in the Tar Seeps: A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea, was released by Trinity University Press in 2023, and her writings have been published in many journals, including Ecotone, Orion, the Kenyon Review, and Ploughshares, also translated across five languages. Currently a senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, she has taught creative writing across genres at Georgetown, University of Utah, and MIT. Recent awards include the 2023 Aldo & Estella Leopold writer in residence in New Mexico, 2022 fellow at the Women’s International Studies Center, 2020-2022 faculty fellow at UT-Austin's Humanities Institute, and 2019 writer in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing & Literature in Switzerland. Born and raised near the Pacific Ocean, Gretchen lives seasonally in the Sonoran desert between two washes and welcomes the smell of creosote after monsoon rains.