Nieuws
Juliana Spahr and Tom van Bunnik discuss ecopoetics at final ‘Nature’s Narrative’ workshop

On June 13, poet and scholar Juliana Spahr and Tom van Bunnik discussed the practice of writing ecopoetry at the final installment of the “Nature’s Narrative” workshop series. Despite the heat, the room was packed with University students and staff, as well as creative practitioners, including writers, poets, and artists.
Juliana started the workshop by reading a short essay about what ecopoetry can offer in a moment of ecological crisis. Then, she read a few poems from her new collection “Ars Poeticas” – a haunting collection of poems about the rich history of what politics and poetry have done with each other and what they might yet do together.
After the readings, Juliana and Tom discussed the theory and practice of ecopoetics – it was a pleasure to talk about what poetry means to us as scholars, poets, and readers in a moment of crisis. The discussion was enriched with questions and comments from the workshop’s participants, who were eager to ask Juliana questions about her work and her writing practice.
In the final hour, Juliana led the participants through a writing exercise on memory, poetry, and nature. As was the case for all workshops, the participants wrote beautiful and inspiring contributions, which we read out loud. This communal poetry reading attested to the connective quality of poetry in a moment of crisis.
The workshop marked the end of the “Nature’s Narrative” workshop series, which was organized by dr. Mia You and co-organized by Tom van Bunnik, with the Climate and the Imagination impact community and the Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU).
