Scientists agree that to save the planet we need to act corporately AND individually. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a university ecologist and a member of the Potawatomi Nation, stresses that true conservation requires re-building the narrative connecting us to the land. “In other words, our relationship with land cannot heal until we hear its stories. But who will tell them?” Her answers come from her tribe’s stories; ours must come from our own past to find the voices that convince us that conquering the land is not the answer.
Nature poetry is usually dismissed as merely descriptive, offering no more than a poet’s response to a beautiful place. But there are many poems that tell a more profound story. We invite you to walk with us through fields, woodlands, and moors as poets admire, describe and listen to nature’s stories. Can we restore our sense of awe for the places in which we live and learn to care for them better?
Upon enrollment each registrant will receive the first class’s poems by email attachment. Subsequent assignments will be identified each class meeting. Longer poems will be copied and distributed. Class members will be invited to share favorite poems on this topic, particularly about Maine.
Instructor John Ward went to Amherst for his A.B. and the University of Virginia for his Ph.D. and taught English literature at liberal arts colleges in Ohio (Kenyon) and Kentucky (Centre) for 40 years. After retiring, for the last dozen years he has been teaching in Coastal Senior College. In a sense, he has hardly “retired” but instead is exploring new as well as familiar literary topics with his contemporaries. While his college courses were principally in the areas of 18th- and 19th-century British literature, more recently he has concentrated on major poets, from Yeats, Frost, Lowell, and Heaney.
Instructor Maryanne Ward holds a B.A. from Marymount Manhattan College, Masters degrees from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. Her main fields of interest are the 19th-century novel (English and Russian) and Greek literature, particularly, Homer’s Odyssey. In addition to teaching her academic specialties, she shares her love of detective fiction with the Mystery Monday reading group. After retiring, Maryanne trained as a Master Gardener, has worked at Blaine House, and is currently a docent at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.