27th Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

Join us—Stand up for the Earth!

Celebrate Writers, Nature & Community

SCHEDULE | as PDF


Saturday, October 15, 2022, 10:00 a.m., free
Strawberry Creek Walk:
Poetry, talk, and an easy walk along beautiful Strawberry Creek through UC Berkeley and its underground path across downtown Berkeley to the Watershed Festival at Civic Center Park. Nevada County Poet Laureate 2019-2021 Chris Olander, River Light, leads the Creek Walk, with poet and wildlife biologist Maya Khosla, All the Fires of Wind and Light, and poets Gene Berson, representing Canary, a literary journal, Tureeda Mikell, Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine, Rooja Mohasssessy, When Your Sky Runs into Mine, Elixir Press Poetry Award-winner; Theresa Whitehill, A Grammar of Longing, with nature talk and poetry throughout. Meet at the southeast corner of Oxford at Center, on the edge of the UC Berkeley campus.

Saturday, October 15, 2022
Noon to 4:30 p.m. • Free
Festival Main Stage • Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park • Berkeley

Poets and writers, including
Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner, Summer Snow
Forrest Gander, Your Nearness, Twice Alive, and Be With, Pulitzer Prize-winner
Genny Lim, Paper Gods and Rebels, performs with jazz guitarist Barry Finnerty
Novelist and spoken word artist Aya de León presents climate fiction; Creative Director, Black Literature vs The Climate Emergency Conference
Tess Taylor, Rift Zone and Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange
Susan Cohen, Democracy on Fire
Caroline Goodwin, Old Snow, White Sun
John Curl, Rainbow Weather: Poems for Environmental Healing
Kirk Lumpkin presents Storm Warning, a new anthology from the Revolutionary Poets Brigade
Beth Slatkin from Bay Nature magazine on Bay Area nature.

And appearing again on the Main Stage: Chris Olander, River Light, Nevada County Poet Laureate 2019-2021
Gene Berson, representing Canary, a literary journal
Tureeda Mikell, Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine
Rooja Mohassessy, When Your Sky Runs into Mine, Elixir Press Poetry Award
Theresa Whitehill, A Grammar of Longing, former Poet Laureate of Ukiah, California

California Poets in the Schools K-12 students
with poet-teachers Maureen Hurley & Fred Dodsworth
We Are Nature Open Mic, 8 three-minute spots, enter the drawing by Noon,
onsite Music by the Barry Finnerty Trio

Hosts: JOYCE JENKINS, KIRK LUMPKIN, and RICHARD SILBERG
Books and Book Signing at the PEGASUS BOOK TENT


BART to Downtown Berkeley!
Civic Center Park is 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.
Pick up your lunch at the Farmers' Market, or bring your sunscreen, blanket, and picnic!

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SCHEDULE

10:00:	Strawberry Creek Walk—meet at Center & Oxford Streets Strawberry Creek Walk—meet at Center & Oxford Streets 2017-19 Nevada County poet laureate Chris Olander leads the Walk with poets Tureeda Mikell, Theresa Whitehill, Rooja Mohassessy, Gene Berson; nature commentary with poet-wildlife biologist Maya Khosla.
12:00:	Welcome—Stand Up for the Earth—Civic Center Park Welcome—Stand Up for the Earth!—Civic Center Park Emcees: Kirk Lumpkin, Joyce, Jenkins, Richard Silberg Festival Kickoff! Aya De León reads climate fiction The Barry Finnerty Trio Last call for Open Mic entries! Enter the drawing while the band plays! "We Are Nature" Open Mic: 8 three-minute spots
1:00:	Strawberry Creek Walk Poets reprise: Tureeda Mikell Theresa Whitehill Rooja Mohassessy Chris Olander Gene Berson Gene Bersonpresents for Canary, a literary journal California Poets in the Schools with Maureen Hurley and Fred Dodsworth
2:00:	The Barry Finnerty Trio Storm Warning anthology with Kirk Lumpkin John Curl Genny Lim with jazz Beth Slatkin presents Bay Nature magazine Maya Khosla, poet-wildlife biologist
3:00:	Susan Cohen, Democracy on Fire Caroline Goodwin The Barry Finnerty Trio Forrest Gander Tess Taylor
4:00:	Robert Hass

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Watershed River Village - Exhibitors!

California Poets in the Schools
CalPoets is a literary arts organization that brings live poetry workshops to schools and communities.
www.californiapoets.org

California Writers Club-Berkeley
The California Writers Club was started by a group of civic-minded writing professionals in the early 1900s. The Berkeley Branch is now the founding branch of the statewide club, which has nineteen branches throughout California.
www.cwc-berkeley.org

Eco-Dress Art by Patricia Bulitt (1949-2021)
Remembering Patricia Bulitt, who danced in creeks and like a bird and held storytelling tea parties for Berkeley women…Patricia Bulitt, a creative force and an impresario, also exhibited her embellished paper dresses in galleries and taught dance to kids in Berkeley and in remote Inuit communities throughout Alaska. (berkeleyside.com) PoetryFlash.org

Haight Ashbury Literary Journal
Literary magazine and books by contributors and editors of the magazine. Poetry and short stories. Writers in the current tissue include Ukrainian-American poet Natalya Sukhonos and John Curl on the Poetry of the Maya.
Visit us on Facebook!

Manic D Press
Great books since 1984, including award-winning poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, radical kids’ books, and more.
manicdpress.com

Poetic Matrix Press

Poetry book publisher based in Lake Isabella, California, publisher of Chris Olander’s River Light and The Art of Healing by Charles Entrekin and Gail Rudd Entrekin, and In the Next Life by Joan Baranow, among many other authors.
www.poeticmatrix.com

Sixteen Rivers Press
Sixteen Rivers Press is a nonprofit, shared-work poetry collective. We are a regional press and publish Northern California authors.
www.sixteenrivers.org

Theresa Whitehill, poet & letterpress artist
Mendocino County poet & letterpress artist Theresa Whitehill co-founded the Mendocino Watershed Poetry Festival, a sibling to the Berkeley festival, which was active 2019 to 2021. She returns to the Berkeley Watershed Poetry Festival as a participant in the Strawberry Creek Walk. Her poetry and letterpress broadsides are in the special collections of universities and institutions such as the Getty Center for the Arts and UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. She will be exhibiting and providing information about her forthcoming poetry project, Heavy Lifting, a collaboration with book artist and publisher Felicia Rice, due in 2023 from Moving Parts Press.
theresawhitehill.com & movingpartspress.com

Click here for 2022 "River Village" Watershed Exhibitors Form—trade your exhibit fee for volunteering! Click here to pay table fee online Or mail attn: Watershed to address on form. For more information, or to volunteer or exhibit, contact watershed@poetryflash.org.

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A collaboration of co-founder Robert Hass, U.S. Poet Laureate 1995-1997 • Poetry Flash • Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market • Pegasus Books Downtown •
100 Thousand Poets for Change

Watershed is grateful to The Watershed Keepers: individual donors, exhibitors
and volunteers • This event is supported in part by the Civic Arts program,
City of Berkeley • We thank our community supporters Acme Bread Company •
Cheese Board Collective • The Watershed logo is a wood block print by artist Shane Eagleton