Noted Poet to Hold Workshop at Sitka Park

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Category: Local News

Created on Tuesday, 12 March 2024 15:38

By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Aspiring poets and veteran writers alike can try their hand at writing in verse at a series of poetry workshops this weekend and next week featuring Arizona-based poet Jodie Hollander, at Sitka National Historical Park.
    Hollander has worked in conjunction with parks for years, largely in the scenic deserts of the Southwest, but this month’s workshops will mark her first time in Sitka.

Jodie Hollander. (Photo provided)

    The theme of beauty in the outdoors permeates much of her work, which often takes on an atmospheric, immersive tone. Hollander’s upcoming trip to Sitka, with the first workshop scheduled for Saturday, is an extension of her “Poetry in the Parks” concept, a series of programs that got its start in Walnut Canyon National Monument, not far from her home in Flagstaff, Arizona.
    The idea to come to Sitka, she told the Sentinel, was suggested to her by a Walnut Canyon Park ranger who was familiar with Sitka National Historical Park.
    “I’m looking forward to introducing or sharing poetry with a wide swath of participants and sharing what I know, and my love of poetry, and also learning from what the participants have to offer and reading the poems that they come up with,” Hollander said.
    “The poems that come out of these workshops, they’re always incredible,” she said from her home in the high country of northern Arizona. “... I’m always impressed by what people can do during the workshop, and I just can’t wait to explore the landscape in Sitka – I mean, it sounds magical.”
    The first of the three workshops at the park will be 1-3 p.m. this Saturday, and will center on human relationships with nature. The second workshop, 6-8 p.m. Thursday, March 21, will delve into narrative poetry and celebrate World Poetry Day. The third and final workshop is scheduled 1-3 p.m. Saturday, March 23, and will explore poetry of place.
    All the workshops are free, and Hollander intends to meet people where they are in terms of skill level and experience.
    “I like to present them in a way where someone brand new to poetry wouldn’t feel lost, but someone with a little bit more experience in poetry wouldn’t be bored.
    Though this will be her first visit to Sitka, Hollander was in Homer at the Storyknife Writers Retreat in 2021.
    “It was my first time in Alaska; it was absolutely life changing. And I did write a few poems about Homer in my book ‘Nocturne,’” she said. That book hit shelves last year, and integrates some of the verse she wrote in Homer with stories of growing up in a family of classical musicians.
    Poetry is Hollander’s method of conveying things and ideas important to her, from blossoming glacier lilies to strained familial ties.
    “It’s my language for communicating with the world. I’ve always been drawn to it... For me, it’s somewhere in between prose and a song,” she said.
    One of her recent works, “Prairie Smoke,” celebrates the coming of spring, a hopeful time of growth and rebirth as symbolized by a perennial flower.
    Hollander concluded her poem:
    “Nevertheless, there’s comfort/ knowing they will come/ every year somehow/ from California to Minnesota, their bold pink petals/ are always the first to appear./ At times they’re even radiant/ after the brutal winter—/ perhaps there may be hope./ Think of Prairie Smoke.”
    Other examples of her work, such as “Mother’s Persian Rugs,” deal with death in the family, while “My Dark Horses” muses on the lives of horses, and how they would weather challenges humans face.
    “If only I were more like my dark horses,/ I wouldn’t have to worry all the time/ that I was running too little and resting too much./ I’d spend my hours grazing in the sunlight,/ taking long naps in the vast pastures,” Hollander wrote.
    Her work can be found in The Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, online and in her books.
    The upcoming sessions in Sitka will cover technical aspects of poetry such as line breaks –– marked above by slashes –– as well as repetition and building sound.
    “I approach teaching from the perspective of sound and musicality,” Hollander said. “I was raised in a family of professional classical musicians, so I am very... keyed into how poems sound, I’m focused on building sound in a poem.”
    For Hollander, a good poem works when read aloud or in silence. She said she draws inspiration from poets like Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost and James Wright.
    She began her Poetry in the Parks program six years ago outside Flagstaff, and has since expanded from Walnut Canyon to other icons of the Southwest such as Wupatki, Sunset Crater, Casa Grande, Saguaro and Montezuma Castle.
    “It’s a program that allows people to deepen their connections to their public lands through writing poems in national parks, state parks, national monuments,” she said.
    She recently ran a poetry workshop in Joshua Tree National Park in southern California and has plans for work in Redwood National Park.
    Hollander hopes to see a good number of Sitkans at her upcoming poetry workshops, and, weather willing, would like the chance to write outdoors. The Weather Service calls for a chance of rain Saturday.
    “I would just really encourage anyone who’s ever had even the smallest interest in poetry to come to one of these workshops,” she said. “It’s a safe and nurturing and encouraging environment. And we also have a lot of fun.”