Ecopoetics [6-weeks, $180 Suggested]

Instructor: Stillman | Sundays July 11-August 15 | 5:00-7:00 PM ET

Ecopoetics combines ecological poetry with the poetic dimensions of ecosystems: their patterns, processes, and creative power. Beyond human perception there are countless other modes of awareness—the ultraviolet vision of insects, the fungal synapses that link networks of trees into giant, underground “brains,” and the tentacle-mindedness of octopuses are only three of a countless number of possible examples. In this class, we’ll consider how these and other ways of being extend and transform our language and thought. We’ll read poetry by the medieval Daoist hermit of Cold Mountain, where “naked branches have clouds for leaves,” and poet-philosophers like Wordsworth, who dwell on the eternal impermanence of the embodied mind, “rolled round in earth’s diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees.” We’ll read America’s black nature poets, who teach us, in the words of Lucille Clifton, that the earth “is a black and living thing,” and experience the queer euphoria of Walt Whitman, who shows us that we “contain multitudes.” Poetry doesn’t just connect us with ecology, it reminds us that language itself evolved in the forest, when our ancestors’ ancestors learned to read the signs and symbols of other living things and other systems of meaning. That insight is more powerful now than ever, when our continuing misrecognition of ourselves and our world is contributing to an ongoing ecological collapse. It isn’t enough to think about forests, we must also understand how forests think. Sign up for Ecopoetics, read some incredible poetry, and spend some time thinking differently.

We depend on a mix of direct student donations and supplemental donations to make all classes pay-what-you-can. Please pick the pricing tier that corresponds with your needs and that you are able to pay now. If you would like to pay in installments, make your first payment now and make a note on your check-out form. If you would like to donate more later in the term, you can always come back and use the “Make a One Time Donation” button! To use a full scholarship, just pick the $3 tier to cover site/processor fees. 

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, we will work with you to reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.