This spring, an exciting series of lectures, readings, and workshops is being hosted by The University of Tulsa’s Department of English & Creative Writing. “The Poetics of Place” brings together visiting authors for a discussion on their writing process and its relationship to “place,” whether it be the subject of where they live, environmental issues, or their experience of living in various locations.
The series is organized by UTulsa Professors Grant Matthew Jenkins and Dennis Denisoff.
Open to students, staff, faculty, and the public, the evenings are engaging the community through a variety of genres, including nature writing, food writing, eco-poetry, and memoir.
“The series encourages the larger Tulsa community to get together to engage on pressing environmental issues through a creative, collaborative spirit,” Denisoff said. “UTulsa’s support for innovative, locally invested creative scholarship ensures our students develop a sense of local and global responsibility for nurturing the natural environment through which we come to understand ourselves as individuals and communities.”.
“The Poetics of Place” is made possible by a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, which is held by UTulsa’s Kendall College of Arts & Sciences and distributed annually. This year, more than $9,500 was awarded to the series of readings and discussions by local, national, and international authors.
The series began in February with the launch of Jenkins’ latest book, “The Other-Conscious Ethics of Innovative Black Poetry,” followed by a March reading and discussion with Sasha Martin, a local poet, memoirist, and food writer who recently completed an environmental writing residency at Oxley Nature Center in Tulsa. This was followed by another March event with Kaveh Bassiri, a former Tulsa Artist Fellow and current creative-writing instructor at UTulsa, who read and discussed his work on translation, emigration, and his Iranian heritage.
The next event in the series takes place Tuesday, March 25, in Tyrell Hall Auditorium, with a poetry reading by world-renowned author Juliana Spahr, winner of the 2009 O.M. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library. Her work deals with transformation, language, and ecology.
On Thursday, April 10, Jonathan Skinner will read his poetry and engage in discussion in the Faculty Study on the second floor of McFarlin Library. Skinner, who teaches ecocriticism and creative writing at the University of Warwick, is the founder of the seminal journal ecopoetics and author of a chapbook, “The Archive.”
On Thursday, April 24, Jenkins will give a workshop, also in McFarlin, on techniques for improvised poetry. Typewriters will be provided for the audience to participate in this unique event.
Wrapping up the series will be local author and artist Carl Antonowicz, who will speak at 101 Archer on Friday, May 2. Antonowicz is a past Tulsa Artist Fellow, as well as a creative writing instructor at UTulsa. His event will serve as the launch for his new graphic novel, “The Ardent,” scheduled for publication this spring.
All events begin at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public. No registration is required.