[SOLIDARITY] Environmental & Climate Justice Poetry Workshop

On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, at 7:00pm, The Brookline Village Library will present I Say the Sky: Poetry, the Natural World, the Climate Crisis, and Connection with Boston-based poet, environmental activist, and mindful writing teacher Nadia Colburn, Ph.D.

In this interactive reading and writing workshop, Nadia will read from her new poetry collection, I Say the Sky (University Press of Kentucky 2024), offer short guided meditations and writing prompts, and lead an interactive discussion on how to create bridges between poetry and environmental and social engagement.

Nadia will consider the following questions: How can poetry be a way for us to come into greater awareness of the world around us? How can poetry hold both the grief and suffering around environmental devastation as well as the wonder and appreciation for all the Earth offers us? What can we learn from the long tradition of nature poetry, not only as readers and writers but also as activists? How can poetry help us understand the interrelationship between our inner and outer worlds? How can poetry help us come into more creative vision for ways to take action to address the climate crisis?

The event is designed to be both restorative and energizing. Anyone interested in poetry, writing, activism, the environment, and more, will enjoy this program.

Take home resources to deepen your connection to poetry as well as new ways to get involved in environmental action.

Admission is Free.

Brookline Village Library is located at 361 Washington Street, Brookline, MA 02445. Learn more about this event on its webpage: [https://www.brooklinelibrary.org/events/event/unavailable-153/]

For questions about the event, please contact Brookline Village Library at 617-730-2370.

ABOUT NADIA COLBURN

Nadia Colburn is the author of poetry books I Say the Sky and The High Shelf, and her poetry and prose have appeared in more than eighty publications, including the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion's Roar, and the Yale Review. She holds a PhD in English from Columbia University and is the founder of Align Your Story Writing School, which brings traditional literary and creative writing studies together with mindfulness, embodied practices, and social and environmental engagement. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children. Find her at nadiacolburn.com, where she offers meditations and free resources for writers.

ABOUT I SAY THE SKY

I Say the Sky by Nadia Colburn. In poems at once profound and accessible, Nadia Colburn finds splendor and astonishment in a natural world—and a human world—that is deeply troubled yet still majestically beautiful. Both elegy and celebration, I Say the Sky addresses some of the most challenging aspects of human existence, from childhood trauma to environmental devastation, and discovers, in unexpected and clear-sighted ways, wisdom, wonder, and peace.

Colburn's brilliant second book charts a journey to meet the self. From girlhood to parenthood, loss to discovery, in poems that sing, the book explores how meaning is made. Claiming the female voice from silence, the poems find their grounding in the body and achieve rootedness and hope.

I Say the Sky is a meditative and ultimately inspiring book that will be savored by seasoned readers as well as those new to poetry.

The book has been endorsed by a wide range of noted poets, writers, and thinkers.

Camille T. Dungy writes of the collection, “From the opening poem and on through this glorious book, Nadia Colburn strikes the difficult balance between celebrating the splendor of the world we inhabit and acknowledging the grief and devastation that none of us can escape. As much a book of love songs as a book of elegies, I Say the Sky is a heart opening and mind sharpening collection.”

Laynie Browne writes, "Nadia Colburn's book I Say the Sky is made of timely and urgent questions. "What is missing? In the house of my life." With skillful metacognition Colburn approaches the inexpressible, explores ephemerality, trauma, ecological devastation, and how everything connects to the quotidian. These poems are wonderfully awake to our unspeakable lives. She writes: "I want so badly to live sometimes I forget / that I am alive." In this collection Colburn couples gravity with gratitude and creates a bright infusion of healing and regeneration."

You can learn more about the book and read other reviews here.