Community Engaged Projects
Humanities Kansas Speakers Bureau
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Listening to Place: Nature and Poetry Walk
Connecting with the natural world can provide a wellspring of knowledge and inspiration, enabling us to (re)discover strategies for living in the world, to grieve and heal after loss, and realign our thinking toward kinship, community, and sustainability. This beginner-friendly nature and poetry walk will be oriented to connecting with the more-than-human world through literature in the environmental humanities. By the words of poets, writers, and our own senses, this hike will engage with diverse habitats throughout Kansas to help participants listen to the often-unseen wisdom around us. This program
is adaptable to meet participants’ accessibility needs.
Wild Words
This collection of poems is an invitation to listen to the call of native plants in Kansas, to the specific places where we make our homes and live in community with many human and other-than-human co-inhabitants.
Through poetry, Wild Words celebrates the innate relationship Kansans have with the prairie. Beginning in June 2023, Humanities Kansas will offer free copies of this original poetry and wildflowers chapbook for cultural organizations to distribute within their communities.
The chapbook features 11 poems inspired by Kansas native plants and wildflowers with original illustrations by Melissa Dehner, followed by questions to engage readers in humanities-themed conversations.
Words of a Feather
I propose poetry as a practice through which we can reawaken our sense of wonder, and in doing so, reorient our own relation to the world.
During the pandemic, Kansans found solace in nature. To celebrate Kansas poetry and the beauty of the spring bird migration, Humanities Kansas offered free copies of its original poetry and bird chapbook, Words of a Feather, for cultural organizations to distribute within their communities + a series of four community events throughout the state.
The chapbook features 10 poems inspired by Kansas birds paired with original bird illustrations by Brad Sneed, followed by questions to engage readers in humanities-themed conversations.
Summer Ride & Write + Lawrence Transit Poet LaureateS
A public arts collaboration with the City of Lawrence and Lawrence Public Libraries with free community summer writing workshops, community-solicited poems on city buses, and new adult and youth poet laureate selected each year. More information: here and here. Photos: here and here.
