Writing with Plants: Dialogues with the More than Human with Tess Taylor (via Zoom)

As writers, what can we learn from proximity and close observation? What can we learn about otherness, from life forms different than our own? Where might we study belonging, rootedness, adaptation,  deep evolutionary history and resilience?

In this workshop, focused on both poems and on some botanical writing, we’ll explore the art and craft of writing in dialog with plants. We’ll explore the idea of writing with, for, and to the flora around us as a way of beginning to deepen our dialog with and awareness of the non-human world.  Just as botanical illustration might help us more closely see and attend, so can writing about the plants around us help us ground ourselves in time, history, weather, — but also in our own stories.

In this four hour class, we’ll read both poems and some botanical writing. We’ll discuss strategies for writing poems of research and observation about the plants nearby us. We’ll break to write, before generating new poems together. Come ready to celebrate the season, the soil, and to practice watching one plant closely.

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom and will be capped at 15 students. Registrants will receive the Zoom link to the email address they use to register. It will arrive immediately after registration so please check your spam folder if you do not receive it. It will also be sent the day before class as a reminder. Please review the course policies page before registering for any classes. Please email ask@writerscenter.org with any questions.

Tess Taylor, an avid gardener based just outside Berkeley, California, is the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry including Work & Days, a contemporary farm journal, which was named one of the 10 best books of poetry of 2016 by the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Times Literary Supplement, CNN, and the New York Times. Taylor has served as on-air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered for over a decade.