Online | Poetry | Workshop

5-Week Online Generative Poetry Workshop: Present Ecopoetics

Under global colonial oppressions, the natural world continues to be forcibly dominated and exploited for the convenience of capitalist endeavor and political opportunity. In this generative poetry workshop, participants will explore ecopoetic practices as a means of personal and psychic liberation from the sterilized ecosystems of modernity and the forces that drive them, while cultivating both human and non-human perspectives of Nature, past, present and future.

In our five weeks together, various assigned readings, including works from Suzanne Césaire, Ed Roberson, Joey Yearous-Algozin, Edgar Garcia and more, will be discussed as well as works from various visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers. Participants will also exercise and develop skills in deep-listening, visualization, and intuitive writing. Participants will be encouraged to divest (at least momentarily) from any formal preconceptions of academic dynamics to create an equitable co-learning space for all. Suitable for anyone with any level of writing experience.

By the end of this workshop, participants will have received feedback from their peers on at least three poems and on all submitted poems from the workshop's organizer. Participants can expect to walk away with a general understanding of ecopoetics, a closer relationship to their immediate environments, and tools for a more instinctual writing practice. This class is an equal footing learning environment, open to writers of all levels.

*No class Dec. 23rd or 30th

Two full-ride scholarships will be awarded for this class to BIPOC writers. To apply, please send [email protected] your bio and a brief (100-word) statement on why taking this class is important to you by November 26th, with the subject line "Ecopoetics Class Scholarship."

Class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom accessed from your private class page. While you can use Zoom from your browser, we recommend downloading the desktop client so you have access to all platform features.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

- Walk away with a general understanding of ecopoetics

- Cultivate a closer relationship to their immediate environments

- Gain tools for a more instinctual writing practice

- At least three new poems, as well as feedback on them from peers and instructor

- 10% discount on all future Catapult classes

COURSE EXPECTATIONS:

Students should expect to complete weekly readings and assignments to the best of their ability, submit at least three poems for workshop/feedback, and provide feedback on their classmates’ submitted work

COURSE SKELETON:

Week 1: Defining Ecopoetics & Methods of Co-learning

Week 2: Memories, Dreams & Displacement

Week 3: Water, Weather & Toxicity

Week 4: Divination of the Natural World; Workshop

Week 5: Workshop; Reflections

Gabrielle Octavia Rucker

Gabrielle Octavia Rucker is a poet, writer, and asemic artist from the Great Lakes. Her work has appeared in various media and publications, including Poetry Project, Vogue, the Sundance Film Festival, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Aspen Art Museum, Poets.org, and more. She is a 2020-2021 Poetry Project Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow & and a 2016 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from The Song Cave in 2022.

Photo credit: S*an D. Henry-Smith