Eco-poetry workshop with Poet Laureate Robert Sullivan

Saturday 11 October 2-4pm

Taranaki Research Centre
Level 2, Puke Ariki Library

Join Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu), Aotearoa New Zealand’s Poet Laureate as he leads us in a workshop to discover and explore eco-poetry, where nature and the environment are at the centre of the writing.

Free, limited spaces, bookings essential

“This poetry session will be devoted to ecopoetic voicing.  In my book Star Waka, I use the waka as a poem or vehicle to convey ideas through the materials and culture of the waka—its timber and carvings, the various methods of traditional navigation as wayfinding signs of nature through creatures of the ocean and sky, as well as the nature of the ocean (currents, wave directions, swell) and sky (stars, wind direction and intensity, sun and moon).

"How do we navigate such a tenuous poetics with our voices? In this workshop we will explore the nature of the lyric voice, and its collectivity with other beings by placing ourselves in our own voyaging waka as we connect our whole selves from within a sea of islands.”  - Robert Sullivan