20th Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

Join us—Stand up for the Earth!

Celebrate Writers, Nature & Community
with 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Poetry Flash, and Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market
          —read more about Watershed here

Saturday, September 26, 2015

This Watershed is dedicated to co-founder Mark Baldridge



download full schedule

Saturday, September 26, 2015, 10:00 a.m.
Strawberry Creek Walk meets at Oxford and Center Streets, Berkeley, Meet in the Redwood Grove (southeast corner of Oxford at Center, near the sculpture of the World Globe as you enter the UC campus).


A walk along beautiful Strawberry Creek on the UC Berkeley campus to the Watershed festival led by poet/eco-educator Chris Olander with readings by Seattle poet/climate activist Emily Johnston, wildlife biologist, poet and writer Maya Khosla, Oakland poet Mk Chavez, poet/physicist J. David Cummings, and poet, letterpress printer Theresa Whitehill, with natural history commentary on Strawberry Creek by Tim Pine, Director of the UC Berkeley Environmental Health and Safety Department

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Noon to 4:30 p.m. • Free
Festival Main Stage • Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park • Berkeley
Next to the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, MLK Jr. Way at Center Street,
one block west of downtown Berkeley BART
Chairs, tent shade, and carpet squares for seating provided.
Bring your lunch or pick up something at the Farmers’ Market!
Bring your sunscreen, blanket, picnic basket!

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate 1995-97
Griffin Poetry Prize-winnning poet Brenda Hillman
Legendary Acoma Pueblo poet Simon J. Ortiz
in a rare West Coast appearance

Poets Francisco X. Alarcón, C.S. Giscombe, Jane Mead,
John Shoptaw, Genny Lim with poetry and jazz
Malcolm Margolin, author of The Ohlone Way
Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City:
The Education of an Urban Farmer

Strawberry Creek Walk poets J. David Cummings, Mk Chavez, Emily Johnston, Maya Khosla, Chris Olander,
Theresa Whitehill

California Poets in the Schools K-12 students,
with John Oliver Simon and Maureen Hurley

Tribute to Co-founder Mark Baldridge by Gerald Fleming, Maya Khosla, Kirk Lumpkin

We are Nature Open Mic, 6 three-minute spots, lottery drawing, enter at the festival at noon, on site at Info Booth!

Invocation (at noon) by Kim Shuck

Music by The Barry Finnerty Trio
 Barry Finnerty on guitar, Peter Barshay on bass, Ron Marabuto on drums



Co-hosts: Richard Silberg and Kirk Lumpkin


Books and Book Signing at the Pegasus Book Tent



2015 River Village Literary and Environmental Exhibits
 Exhibitors’ showcase, featuring (more to be announced):

California Poets in the Schools


City of Berkeley’s Clean Stormwater Program and Energy Office

Ecology Center

Haight Ashbury Literary Journal


Heyday Books


Milvia Street: Art and Literary Journal


Pandemonium Press

Pegasus Downtown – Book Tent

Poetic Matrix Press


Poetree Interactive Writing with Sharon Coleman and Milvia Street Art and Literary Journal, Berkeley City College

Poetry Flash


Reed Magazine/San Jose State University MFA in Creative Writing


Saint Mary’s College MFA in Creative Writing


Sixteen Rivers Press


Sugartown Publishing


Words of the Watershed Journal from UC Berkeley

Click here for Exhibitors info—trade exhibit fees for volunteering!
To volunteer or exhibit, contact info@poetryflash.org.
Click here to pay Exhibitor fees


Watershed banners by artist Arthur Okamura
Waterchute shades and Creek Poem installation by artist Claire Anna Baker

Chairs, tent shade, and carpet squares for sitting provided. Bring your lunch or pick up something at the Farmers’ Market—Bring your sunscreen, blanket, picnic basket, and parasol!

********************

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival is a collaboration of Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate 1995-97 • Poetry Flash • Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market In conjunction with: 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Pegasus Books Downtown, and Moe's Books Media sponsor: The East Bay Express

MLK, Jr., Civic Center Park is Wheelchair Accessible
ASL Sign Language Interpreted

Watershed is made possible with support from:
The Watershed Keepers—our individual donors and volunteers
The Civic Arts Program, City of Berkeley
Zellerbach Family Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts (2014)
This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through grants it has received from The James Irvine Foundation and the Hearst Foundations.

Please support our community donors:
Acme Bread Company • Berkeley Horticultural Nursery • Berkeley Bowl Marketplace • Bette’s-To-Go • Cheese Board Collective • Trader Joe’s, Berkeley

Watershed Logo by Shane Eagleton