Description
This package includes a 4-night stay in Cabin #5, registration for Poetry of Birding with Priyanka Kumar, and one group dinner as listed in the workshop description below.
Choose “single” for one workshop registration and single cabin occupancy.
Choose “double” for two workshop registrations and double cabin occupancy.
This spacious 1 bedroom cabin is part of the southern trio of cabins that faces the playa. It has a queen bed, a full kitchen with dining table and chairs and a large bathroom with a shower. Includes a large writing/work desk in the living room as well as a small art and writing studio off of the bedroom. Enjoy the private wrap-around deck with expansive views of the playa and the surrounding mountains. This cabin can sleep up to 4 people with use of the full-size fold-out futon in the living room and a twin cot that can be placed either in the living room or the art/writing studio.
*Please note that the tub room has been converted into a writing/art studio. The tubs have been removed in an effort to conserve water in support of our environmental mission. Only non-toxic art materials can be used in the studio.
POETRY OF BIRDING
Instructor: Priyanka Kumar
Dates: May 2-6, 2024
Arrival: May 2, 2024
Departure: May 6, 2024
Skill Level: All skill levels
Mobility Level: Easy Mobility for field trips
Workshop Description:
Through guided birding excursions to observe migratory birds in the Summer Lake Wildlife Area, bring your observations back to meditative discussions in our workshop circle. Here, we will integrate birds and poetry, beginning with Seamus Heaney’s “St. Kevin and the Blackbird,” and travel back through the ages to the lone hut of the master of Chinese nature poetry. Participants will create and workshop nature poems of their own.
Instructor Bio:
PRIYANKA KUMAR is the nationally-acclaimed naturalist and author of Conversations with Birds, praised as “a landmark book” that “could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls” (Psychology Today). Conversations with Birds is a finalist for the 2023 CLMP Firecracker Award for a book that makes a significant contribution to our literary culture. Kumar’s essays and criticism appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion, and The Rumpus. Her work has been featured on CBS News Radio, Yale Climate Connections, and Oprah Daily.
She is a recipient of an Aldo & Estella Leopold Writing Residency, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship. Kumar holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She has taught at the University of Southern California, the University of California Santa Cruz, and has given keynote addresses and workshops across the country from Los Angeles to Tucson to Alaska. Kumar wrote, directed, and produced the feature documentary The Song of the Little Road, starring Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar.
Agenda:
Day 1: Thursday, May 2: 2:00-5:00 pm Arrival | Evening presentation on migratory bird patterns + PLAYA bird walk
Day 2: Friday, May 3: Morning Birding Field Excursion | Afternoon Introduction to Nature Poetry, and its varied traditions | Participants begin considering the subject of their poem.
Day 3: Saturday, May 4: Birding Field Excursion | Discussion: Holding the Landscape and Crafting first poem draft
Day 4: Sunday, May 5: Morning Considering Nature Poems in the Modern Tradition | Participants work on a revised draft of their poem | Group dinner provided by PLAYA + presentation of polished poems, followed by constructive critique
Day 5: Monday, May 6: Depart by noon
Equipment to bring:
- Binoculars
- Notebooks
- Optional- laptop and charger
- Printer if you like to work with printed copies of your work. PLAYA is limited on printing capabilities.
