Join us—Stand up for the Earth!
October 5, 2024, Noon to 4:30pm, Civic Center Park, Berkeley, CA – FREE!
Celebrate Writers, Nature & Community
Saturday, October 5, 2024, 10:00 a.m., free
Strawberry Creek Walk:
Poetry, talk, and an easy walk along beautiful Strawberry Creek through UC Berkeley and its underground path across downtown Berkeley to the Watershed Festival at Civic Center Park. Chris Olander, River Light, leads the Creek Walk and performs his poetry, with nature commentary by Elizabeth Dougherty, Ph.D, founder/director of Wholly H20, and poets Claire Blotter, Expanding. Water. Ways, Gabriel Cortez, Ecology Center Poet-in- Residence, poet and spoken word artist Mario Ellis Hill, Emilie Lygren, What We Were Born For, and more. Meet at the southeast corner of Oxford at Center, near the large, round sphere sculpture, on the edge of UC Berkeley campus.
Saturday, October 5, 2024
Noon to 4:30 p.m. • Free
Festival Main Stage • Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park • Berkeley
Poets and writers, including
Genny Lim, San Francisco Poet Laureate 2024
James Cagney, Martian: The Saint of Loneliness,
James Laughlin Award-winner, Academy of American Poets
Jane Hirshfield, Northern California Book Awards Fred Cody
recipient for Lifetime Achievement and Service, “one of American poetry’s central
spokespersons for the biosphere,” The Asking: New and Selected Poems
Lee Herrick, California Poet Laureate,
In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected
Marsha de la O, Creature, Pitt Poetry Series,
Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, The New Yorker
John Shoptaw, Near-Earth Object,
Northern California Book Award-winner for Times Beach
Cintia Santana, The Disordered Alphabet,
Northern California Book Award-winner 2024
Ellery Akers, poet, visual artist, and naturalist, A Door Into the Wild: Poetry and Art, Swerve: Environmentalism, Feminism, and Resistance
California Poets in the Schools students with poet-teachers Tureeda Mikell, The Body: Oracle of Memory, and Brennan DeFrisco
WE ARE NATURE OPEN MIC, 8 three-minute spots, 12:20 pm, enter the drawing before then, onsite at the Info Tent
Chris Olander, River Light, Nevada County Poet Laureate 2019-2021, performs his poetry with dancers Sharon Coleman and Ranko Ogura accompanied by jazz guitarist Barry Finnerty
Appearing again on the Main Stage:
Claire Blotter, Expanding. Water. Ways
Gabriel Cortez, Ecology Center Poet-in-Residence
Mario Ellis Hill, poet and spoken word artist
Emilie Lygren, What We Were Born For
World-class jazz played throughout by The Barry Finnerty Trio, acclaimed jazz guitarist Barry Finnerty, who has toured and played with Miles Davis, The Crusaders, and Hubert Laws, with PETER BARSHAY on bass
Hosts: JOYCE JENKINS, KIRK LUMPKIN, and RICHARD SILBERG
Books and Book Signing at the PEGASUS BOOK TENT
Check back for updates!
For more information: info@poetryflash.org, (510) 525-5476, cell (510) 612-3958
BART to Downtown Berkeley!
Civic Center Park is next to the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, MLK Jr. Way at Center Street, one block west of downtown Berkeley BART.
Chairs and tent shade for seating provided.
Pick up your lunch at the Farmers’ Market, or bring a blanket and picnic!
Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival is a collaboration of Robert Hass, Poetry Flash, Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers’ Market, and Ecocity Builders. The Watershed Festival emerged from Robert Hass’s national Watershed initiative during his tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate, 1995-97, which explored connections between environmental awareness and the American literary imagination. The first two Watersheds were held at the Bandshell at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.