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WATERSHED Saturday,
October 28, 2006
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Noon to 5 pm
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Free For Immediate Release:
October 11, 2006 ELEVENTH ANNUAL SATURDAY Celebrate writers, nature and
community, Saturday, October
28, noon to 6 p.m. at the
11th annual Watershed
Environmental Poetry Festival at
the new Berkeley City College. A
free day of poetry readings,
music, and environmental
education, featuring California
Poet Laureate Al
Young, poet/eco-feminist
sriter Susan
Griffin,poet/Friends of
the LA River activist Lewis
MacAdams, poet/naturalist
Maya Khosla,
poet/eco-educator Chris
Olander, poet/visual
artist Albert Flynn
DeSilver,
poet/translator/educator John
Oliver Simon, and poet/Poetry
Flash editor Richard
Silberg. Student and youth
poets from Poetry Inside
Out, California Poets in
the Schools, and River of
Words. Music by Smooth
Toad with G.P. Skratz,
Andy Dinsmore, and Bob
Ernst. A Pre-Festival Creek Walk
and Poetry Workshop, open to
all, will begin the celebration
at 10 a.m. Starting on the
UC Berkeley Campus at Oxford and
Center Streets, the Walk will
visit various creek-side sites
for presentations by
poet/percussionist
Avotcja, dancer
Patricia Bulitt, and Native
American poet/activist Kim
Shuck. This walking/writing
meditation on place will also
trace the route of Strawberry
Creek as it tunnels beneath
downtown Berkeley. Besides poets
responding to the creek's
condition, restoration advocates
will discuss the why and how of
"daylighting." The
writing-workshop portion of the
Walk will resume mid-afternoon at
Berkeley City College where poets
will refine their creek poems for
a finale reading to close the
festival. Program panels and
presentations include: "Nature
Through Artists' Eyes" with
David
Liittschwager, an
acclaimed nature photographer
noted Bolinas artist Arthur
Okamura, Professor emeritus
at CCA, and designer of the
festival's windflown banners, and
poets Maya Khosla and
Albert Flynn DeSilver;
"Ecological Design and the
Poetry of Place--Strawberry Creek
Downtown" a discussion with
EcoCity Builders' Kirstin
Miller and author Richard
Register, poet/activist
Lewis MacAdams, and Gus
Yates of Citizens for a
Strawberry Creek Plaza; and
"Sustainable Living"
workshop led by Kirk
Lumpkin of the Ecology
Center. "River Village"
literary, art, and environmental
organizations will exhibit in the
BCC Atrium from noon to 6 p.m Greeting festival participants
in the Atrium will be Arthur
Okamura's Watershed-flow
banners. Note new location: Atrium and
Auditorium, Berkeley City
College, 2050 Center Street,
one-half block west of downtown
Berkeley BART. All events are
free and all ages are welcomed,
Noon-6:00. For more information
and festival schedule, visit
www.poetryflash.org. Watershed is proud to
celebrate eleven years of
excellence as a grassroots event
that inspires a community of
school age children, families,
students, poets, artists, and
environmentalists with knowledge
about our natural world through
poetry and the arts. The
Watershed Festival is a
collaboration between Poetry
Flash, the Ecology
Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market,
EcoCity Builders, and Berkeley
City College. Photos available upon request.
For more information call
Watershed/Poetry Flash at (510)
526-9105, or visit
www.poetryflash.org. CALENDAR
EDITORS 11th Annual All events free and open to
all. 10 AM Opening Creek
Walk, with poetry writing and
reading led by Chris Olander,
readings by participating poets
and artists, talks by Watershed
restoration experts. Meet on the
UC Berkeley Campus, Oxford and
Center Streets. The
writing-workshop portion of the
Walk will resume mid-afternoon at
Berkeley City College where poets
will refine their creek poems for
a finale reading to close the
festival For more information and
festival schedule, visit
www.poetryflash.org. FESTIVAL
PARTICIPANTS Featured poets:
California Poet Laureate
Al Young, Susan
Griffin, Lewis
MacAdams, Maya Khosla, Chris
Olander, Albert Flynn DeSilver,
John Oliver Simon, Richard
Silberg. Student and youth poets
from Poetry Inside Out,
California Poets in the Schools,
and River of Words. Music: Smooth Toad with
G.P. Skratz, Andy Dinsmoor, Bob
Ernst. Creek Walk and Poetry
Workshop presenters:
poet/percussionist Avotcja, poet
Kim Shuck, dancer Patricia
Bullit, poet/activist Lewis
MacAdams, Ecology Center's Kirk
Lumpkin, EcoCity Builder's
Kirstin Miller, led by Chris
Olander. ENVIRONMENTAL
PRESENTATIONS "Nature Through Artists'
Eyes" with by renowned
natural history
photographer
David Liittschwager, winner
of the Biodiversity Leadership
Award , noted Bolinas artist
Arthur
Okamura, Professor emeritus
at CCA, and poets Maya Khosla and
Albert Flynn DeSilver "Ecological Design and the
Poetry of Place--Strawberry Creek
Downtown" with Kirstin Miller
and Richard Register of EcoCity
Builders, poet Lewis MacAdams of
Friends of the LA River, and Gus
Yates of Citizens for a
Strawberry Creek Plaza "Sustainable Living"
led by Kirk Lumpkin of the
Ecology Center. AL YOUNG Al Young,
California Poet
Laureate, honors include
Wallace Stegner,
Guggenheim, Fulbright,
National Endowment for
the Arts Fellowships,
two American Book
Awards, the Pushcart
Prize, to mention a few.
Young's many books
include novels,
collections of poetry,
essays, memoirs and
anthologies. His work
has appeared in The
Paris Review,
Ploughshares, Essence,
the New York
Times, Brilliant
Corners: A Journal of
Jazz and Letters,
Rolling Stone, and
the Norton Anthology
of African American
Literature. As
California Poet
Laureate, he is
currently encouraging
poetry, literacy and
learning throughout the
state. SUSAN GRIFFIN Susan Griffin
is the eco-feminist
author of The Book of
the Courtesans: A
Catalogue of Their
Virtues (2001);
Woman and Nature: The
Roaring Inside Her;
Pornography and
Silence; and A
Chorus of Stones;
Unremembered Country
(1987); The Eros
of Everyday Life
(1995); What Her Body
Thought: A Journey into
the Shadows (1999);
Bending Home:
Selected New Poems,
1967-1998 (1998). She
received a MacArthur
grant for Peace and
International
Cooperation, an NEA
Fellowship, and an Emmy
Award for the play
Voices. LEWIS MACADAMS Lewis MacAdams
is a poet, activist,
journalist and author of
a dozen books and tapes
of poetry. His poems
have appeared in many
anthologies over the
last twenty-five years.
He is founder of Friends
of The Los Angeles
River, a "40 year art
work" to bring the Los
Angeles River back to
life. His book, Birth
of the Cool: Beat, Bebop
and the American Avant
Garde was published
in 2001. He is currently
writing a biography of
Rolling Stone
founder Jann Wenner. A
new collection of poems,
The River: Books One,
Two & Three,
takes the Los Angeles
River as its metaphor,
weaving the story and
song of the poet,
activist and journalist
as these three roles
form the confluence
which is the man. DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER DAVID
LIITTSCHWAGER, along
with photographer Susan
Middleton, studied and
worked with Richard
Avedon. Together, they
have published three
books, Witness,
s, on the subject
of endangered North
American plants and
animals, and Remains
of a Rainbow: Rare
Plants and Animals of
Hawaii. Their work
was the subject of an
Emmy award-winning 1998
National Geographic
television WATERSHED-FLOW BANNERS BY
ARTHUR OKAMURA Arthur Okamura.
Noted Bolinas artist
and Professor emeritus
at California College of
the Arts, Arthur created
the
Watershed-flow
banners for the second
Watershed Poetry
Festival held at the
band shell in Golden
Gate Park. In 1998, they
began flying at
Berkeley's Civic Center
Park, when the event
moved to the East Bay.
Here, they are seen at
last year's festval on
the UC Berkeley campus.
On October 28,
they will flow in the
new Atrium at Berkeley
City College. Arthur
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