24PearlStreet Workshops and Events
This multi-genre course is a scavenger hunt. Each day will ask you to collect a different object, introduce it to an unexpected space, and to write. We will ask questions of how spaces cradle bodies, objects cradle space, and how the presence of tangible things dictates the types of interactions that we can have in those spaces. No two rooms in the world sound the same. Prepare to explore landscape, both external and external, in a new way.
Reading / listening assignments include the work of Helen Mirra, Dervla Murphy, Sharon Creech, Lenelle Moise, Elizabeth Bishop, Michael Ondaatje, and Banksy. In the course blog we will discuss how tangible things inform and motivate these works. How does each artist use objects to achieve their emotional impact? What is the role of space / landscape, and how are landscapes created in each work? How can we use these models to be more present in the environments that surround us?
In addition to submitting work, you will be expected to comment on one-two of your classmates’ writing responses daily. At the end of the course, I will conduct one-on-one conversations with each student via Skype or email to discuss further revisions and how to move forward.
Biography
Devi K. Lockwood is a poet / touring cyclist / storyteller currently traveling the world by bicycle and by boat to collect 1,001 stories from people she meets about water and/or climate change.
Her journey began with the September 21, 2014 People's Climate March in NYC. To date she has collected 441 stories (audio recordings) in the USA, Fiji, Tuvalu, New Zealand, and Australia. Lockwood is currently based in New Zealand to write a book proposal.
The plan down the line is to make a map on a website where you can click on a point and listen to a story someone has told her from that place.
Devi's work has been published in The Guardian, Storyscape, BOAAT, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere.
In May 2014, Devi graduated Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude from Harvard University where she studied Folklore & Mythology, earned a Language Citation in Arabic, and rowed for the Radcliffe Varsity Lightweight Women's Rowing team. She loves places where rivers meet the sea.
