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WORKSHOP #7 - Poetry of Place: A Collective Writing Workshop
Thursday August 21, 2025 2:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
TBA
This "Poetry of Place" workshop invites participants into a series of poetry rituals and prompts that explore our deep connections with land and the ways these links can help us tell stories about our beloved ecosystems as they change. Each workshop session will be held in a unique Chattanooga greenspace with a history of transformation—Coolidge Park or Lynnbrook Park.

In our age of climate disaster, ecosystem change often comes with grief and loss. Rewilded and revitalized urban spaces like these parks offer an alternative narrative, one that demonstrates how we can repurpose and reimagine old infrastructure to make our cities more sustainable, useful, and beautiful.

Through this workshop, participants will learn the history of each park and explore these ideas to draft poetry or prose—both individually and collaboratively—about the places we love, how we remember them now, and how we might imagine their futures. No experience with poetry is necessary to participate!

In the first hour, participants will explore the park and learn about its history and transformations over the years. They will complete a warm-up prompt, taking 10 minutes to write, and then share their responses with the group.

During the second hour, participants will work on two extended eco-poetry prompts, taking 20 minutes to write and 10 minutes to share responses for each one. The second exercise will be inspired by Ross Gay's Poem "To The Fig Tree on 9th and Christian." These prompts will encourage participants to imagine ways to repurpose and renew existing infrastructure, creating spaces that are both social and biodiverse.

In the third hour, we will co-create a group poem from our responses. Throughout the workshop, participants will have been jotting down and marking favorite lines from both themselves and others. We’ll use these lines as the foundation of our poem and spend the final hour collaboratively ordering and editing them.  
Speakers
avatar for Caroline Wiygul

Caroline Wiygul

Poet, Policy Researcher, & Grantwriter
Caroline Wiygul is a poet and landscape designer originally from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Her work explores personal and ecological transitions—girlhood to adulthood, home to disaster zone, Anthropocene to whatever better world we hope to build—through ecosystems as they... Read More →
Thursday August 21, 2025 2:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
TBA
  Workshop

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