Yearlong Eco-Poetry Project Concludes with Film Premiere

A yearlong poetry project that spanned 21 workshops and more than 400 participants throughout Westchester County concludes with the premiere of a documentary as well as a selection of poetry readings on October 26 in ArtsWestchester’s gallery.

The Floodwaters Workshops is a 23-minute film that documents Westchester County Poet Laureate B.K. Fischer’s work with public school students, incarcerated adults, seniors, published poets and others. The project’s goal was to inject poetry into local conversations about climate change and the local environment.

“Spending hours observing our environments…and putting words on the page to describe those environments, [turned] the art of poetry into an immediate experience for all who participated,” said Fischer, who concludes her poet laureate term at the end of the year.

Fischer and her collaborators led workshops at secondary schools, Westchester Community College, prisons, The Loft LGBTQ+ Community Center, The Hudson Valley Writers Center, Greenburgh Town Hall, and public parks.

Says Fischer: “Reading and writing eco-poems together…led to conversations about the impact that climate change has on our lives, as well as consideration of the politics, personal practices, fears and hopes that accompany those changes.”

In one scene of the documentary, two formerly incarcerated volunteers read a poem by a detainee at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The poem, One Man’s Trash, illustrates how—even from a prison cell—the degradation of the natural world is a palpable loss.

The focus on climate and climate change sets The Floodwaters Workshops in an arena roiled with controversy, leading some of the young poets to make uncomfortable statements:

“I hate to think that one day, Earth might not get to see the stars because of people like me driving home,” says Sonali Browning, a young project participant who read her work Stars in the film, and who will read her work at the screening.

Harmony Hopwood, a tenth grader at New Rochelle High School, who will also read her work at the screening, described poetry as a political tool: “It’s a way for many people who don’t feel like they have a voice, or don’t have a voice, to get out the information or knowledge that they have. And it makes us less desensitized to the horrible thing that’s happening before our eyes.”

Alexa Murphy, a senior at the Masters School, says the workshops and the poetry were remedies for apathy – a response to the sense of resignation that some feel when faced with the seemingly insurmountable threats posed by climate change.

“When you read a poem that really moves you, it makes you want to do something,” said Murphy, who will read at the screening. “When people start to feel this sense of disillusionment and sadness, this sense that they can’t do anything about the climate crisis, it’s artforms like poetry [sic] make people realize that they do matter. And that this is something that’s worth fighting for.”

The event will take place at 6pm. To RSVP, guests can email gallery@artswestchester.org.

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