Nurturing Cities and Towns Poetry Workshop 16/5/24 – UK morning/Aust eve OR UK evening/US afternoon

 Wherever you live, cities and towns are key to our culture, lifestyles and carbon footprints. How do we envisage our cities and towns in the future?  What kinds of spaces and places for nature could there be? How might we live a more connected, more human, more climate-friendly and nature-led life in cities and towns? What  connections do we have with cities and towns if we live in rural or remote areas? What we nurture in our cities and towns matters.  Even in a big city, there’s still the possibility of interaction with and encouragement of nature. Glimpses of nature are crucial to the next generation, wellbeing and sustainability. Explore poems about cities and towns with an environmental lens and grow your own places of nature and sustainability.

This workshop is part of a series called The Climate of Change Poetry workshops which explores themes related to this time of great environmental change.  As Margaret Atwood says ‘I think calling it climate change is rather limiting. I would rather call it everything change’ – which in many ways is an exciting brief for a writer. Express, explore navigate a ‘thrutopia’ in poetry. There are more workshops in the Climate of Change series: UK morning time (also suitable for Australians) OR  UK evening time (suitable for US time zones too) . It’s cheaper to join the series if you wish.

This is a time of great change, and writers are at the forefront of describing and envisaging change, as well as revering what is caring, precious and joyful.

If you’re a prose writer you might also find these workshops useful inspiration.

TIMING

Thursdays: 16th May, 2.5 hours long 

UK evening:  6.30pm to 9pm UK time – Suitable for US-based poets too  

OR 

UK morning: Start time: 10am London time // 5pm Perth Australia // 7pm Sydney & Brisbane Australia // 6.30pm  Adelaide & Darwin

A useful link for checking other timezones against UK time: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

Choose the ticket according to your preferred timing

I always login 15mins early to settle in and for social chat.

COST

GBP £26

For other currencies, including $AUD, a cost effective exchange rate is automatically calculated by STRIPE.

maximum 12 people

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

Australian Cath Drake’s collection ‘The Shaking City’ (Seren Books) was highly commended in the 2020 Forward Prizes, longlisted in the international Laurel Prize and described by TS Eliot winner Philip Gross as ‘a guide to staying clear-eyed, combative and caring in unsettling times.’. It follows ‘Sleeping with Rivers’ which won the Seren/Mslexia poetry pamphlet prize and was a Poetry Book Society choice. Cath’s prizes include twice second in the international Ginkgo eco-poetry prize and highly commended in 2019. She teaches writing in the UK, Australia and online. She’s an award-winning environmental journalist and nonfiction writer and also a mindfulness teacher.

QUOTES FROM PARTICIPANTS

 It was great to work within a supportive community of writers on the most pressing issues facing humanity at this time. A kind of magic happened within the discipline of the challenge. I found a joy in writing I didn’t know I’d lost, returning to writing freely with freedom to experiment and play. Anne Enith Cooper

I absolutely loved it and feel I was positively stretched as a writer. Patricia Foster McKenley

I loved your course. Your assignments are so interesting and really helped me dig deep. You have so much enthusiasm and the encouragement makes me feel at home. You have a wonderful depth of perception for the poems we studied. Christina

… you have promoted a good balance between the serious, the fun and the self-care aspects. Thank you!  Gabrielle

Thank you for all your hard work in developing this course – whilst the topic is so difficult to face up to, it’s really important and helpful to do it in a supportive and encouraging environment which this has been. Ali Walters

If this event sells out, contact me using this form TO BE ADDED TO THE WAITING LIST – I often do draw on the waiting list. Include the name of the workshop