What a joy to celebrate Earth Day with the good folks at Eastern Tennessee State University last week! Honored to have shared the stage with Ron Rash, Rose McLarney, and Juan Martinez in a room filled with incredible images of Appalachia by the seriously talented photographer Tema Stauffer. The sky was blue that day and the coffee was good and strong. Even better, I addressed a standing-room-only crowd about the poetry of trees. What a delight! Many thanks to Lacy Snapp, Jesse Graves, and all the many volunteers that went into making the spring literary festival happen.
One Earth. One Earth to be celebrated and protected every day, not just this one Earth Day. But today let us lift up with this poem by Heather Swan, who wrote this piece in response to devastating wildfires. As she says, “the poem was one that felt as if it was given to (her) from somewhere else, the words like directions for a ritual of healing and rebuilding.” May you, too, find that new growth despite overwhelm of the blackened landscape. May you, too, find your joy. As she says, “The earth wants to heal. We can’t give up on her.”
Well, here’s a thrill: to open the mailbox and find that Hellbender is not only featured eloquently by ecocritic and writer Jenna Gersie, but that our name made the cover! All of this, plus an overwhelming response to our application period opening this first week. Reading this article—alongside so many amazing submissions—is the best response we could have hoped for this spring, especially after these years of planning and slowly recovering from Hurricane Helene. To quote our poetry faculty Tim Siebles, “Poetry asks us to think more carefully, to feel our lives—more deeply, more accurately. . . . If we are committed to saving ourselves and our besieged planet, I believe that the emotive force and intellectual precision found in poetry are desperately needed right now.”
It’s Monday, April 13. . . . the day we’ve all been waiting for here at Hellbender! So excited to announce that our applications have just opened! As we have rolling admissions, we’ll be open until May 11—or until all seats are filled. See our bio for the link to submit your application.
How will all of this end? And where might we be going during these chaotic times? As David Baker says, it’s “an essential mystery—something gone ages and ages before us, yet always up head, just out of reach.” There is, as he remarks, “great sorrow” in this poem and yet we agree with him: it also holds hope. So delighted to have this incredible poet (who, apropos of this poem sent us a picture of him as a baby) as part of our inaugural gathering this October. Applications open this coming Monday, April 13. For more information, click the link in our bio.
What a delight it was to feature David George Haskell as a part of Hellbender’s generative writing session last Sunday in celebration of his astounding new book, How Flowers Made Our World. And if that wasn’t enough of a bouquet to make us grateful, poet Anna Lena Phillips Bell made a cameo appearance to read a plant poem of her own from her newly published collection, Might Could. All this, and just this morning, Asheville woke with a serviceberry sapling in bloom and a bear freshly awake from her long winter’s nap walking through the yard. Oh, the persistence of life—all that greening joy, revolutionary and necessary.
One week from today! Join us for this free reading in celebration of The Nature of Our Times, cohosted by @writing.the.wild and @hellbenderpoets . Join hosts Krissy Kludt @krissykludt , Nickole Brown @nickole.brown , and J. Drew Lanham @wildandincolor for this evening of poetry and conversation in celebration of The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders, an anthology gathering 210 voices from the arts, ecology, academia, and Indigenous communities from North America giving witness to how nature shapes our lives and how we can shape the future (@palomapress , 2025). Sign up at the link in our stories or at writingthewild.org
Camille Dungy, y’all! . . . Is there anyone who more deftly weaves matters of the heart with concerns about the environment? In this poem, both the dangers of floods and of love are expressed simultaneously, even seamlessly. We’re thrilled Camille will be a part of our poetry faculty this coming October at our inaugural Hellbender gathering. Mark your calendar for April 13 should you want to apply!
The Nature of Our Times Reading
hosted by Writing the Wild and Hellbender Gathering of Poets
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
6-7:30pm CT
Live online
Join hosts Krissy Kludt, Nickole Brown, and J. Drew Lanham for this evening of poetry and conversation in celebration of The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders, an anthology gathering 210 voices from the arts, ecology, academia, and Indigenous communities from North America giving witness to how nature shapes our lives and how we can shape the future (Paloma Press, 2025).
Readers will include:
David Hassler @dhassle1
Jane Hirshfield
Derek Sheffield @derek_sheffield
Kimberly Blaeser @kblaeser8
Elizabeth Bradfield @e.bradfield
Heather Swan @beegood2bees
Renata Golden @renatagolden
Traci Brimhall @our_lady_of_nod
Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamariehoffman
Erin Coughlin Hollowell @beingpoetry
Alison Hawthorne Deming @aldeming1
Zoë Fay-Stindt@zoefaystindt
Anne Haven McDonnell@annehavenjj
Emilie Lygren@emlygren
J. Drew Lanham @wildandincolor
Nickole Brown @nickole.brown
Krissy Kludt @krissykludt
Thrilled to announce our next generative writing session featuring David George Haskell, a twice-Pulitzer finalist who thinks like a scientist and writes like a poet (and who will be our featured guest at our inaugural gathering this October).
For years now, David has translated his insatiable curiosity as a biologist into lush and lyric prose. We’ll be celebrating the publication of his fifth book, How Flowers Made Our World, a book that he says transformed how he sees life’s history and future, and in particular, the “many ways that flowers build, sustain, and animate the living world, human life included.” According to him, flowers—“the world’s great collaborators and creators”—are revolutionaries. As he says, “Yes, I really mean it when I say revolutionaries. They remade the world using cooperation, beauty, and illusion as creative forces.”
Come write with us! As always, our online sessions are free and open to the public. Register with the link in our bio or go to our website and find the link on our “Upcoming Events” page.
‘Put simply, this good Earth is being killed off, piece by piece, and I refuse to stand by and do nothing about it.’
The Hellbender Gathering of Poets is a nonprofit organisation based in of the mountains of Western North Carolina with the aim to nurture a community hellbent on finding the words that protect and repair our climate-changed world. Through an annual festival that celebrates the power of poetry, they welcome writers into a joyful rising — one galvanised by environmental science, awareness, courage, and hope.
This fourth post in our Uncivilised Poetics month is the tumultuous tale of how it began by its president, Nickole Brown — a story of storms, salamanders and the persistence of poets.
With poems and a film; ‘The Swannanoa Speaks‘.
darkmountainproject.substack.com/p/a-story-in-three-floods
IMAGE: Spring Studio by Kyle Scheurmann (from Dark Mountain: Issue 28 – Uncivilised Art)
Joy is the theme for us at AWP, especially this Saturday morning as we prepare for a panel—Joy Hellbent and Necessary. This is why we’ve made especially sure to dance and air-karate-fight around our book fair table and why it’s covered in dark chocolate and bubbles and clementines and packets of zinnia seeds printed with this quote by Ross Gay: “What if, instead of cursing the darkness, we planted some seeds?” If you’re here in Baltimore, come join us at 10:35 a.m., room 327. Let us rise up with humor, jubilation, and delight.
