IPL Associated Events

Since Director Beth Piatote founded the Indigenous Poetics Lab at the Arts Research Center in fall 2022, she has curated our public facing programs with an eye to the ways the arts intrisically support Indigenous and endangered language revitalization. This can be seen in the array of events developed, produced by, and co-sponsored by ARC in the past two years.

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In addition, ARC's expansion of the Poetry & the Senses fellows program for spring and fall semesters of 2023 created an opportunity for us to collaborate with Indigenous writers who draw on Indigenous languages and aesthetics: Craig Santos Perez (Chamoru), Natalie Diaz (Mojave), along with ARC Director Beth Piatote (Nez Perce).

Throughout the year these three facilators worked with 20 poetry fellows chosen for their connections to Indigenous and endangered languages. The fellows included undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and community poets from UC Berkeley, University of Hawai’i (Perez); Arizona State University (Diaz); and the community-based Nez Perce writing collective, luk’upsíimey (Piatote). The theme of the year was Reclamation–Our ancient ocean. The fellowship year culminated in a gathering of 22 poets and facilitators for a 3 day gathering, hosted at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Arts Research Center, and consisted of readings, workshops, and conversations. The Poetry & the Senses Program was generously funded by the Engaging the Senses Foundation.

More information on Poetry & the Senses initiative here, and a list of poetry fellows here.