Writing Workshop: ARTFUL ECOLOGY

Why do we become attached to places? What can art add to a place, and vice versa?  In this craft talk and generative session, we will explore how settings both real and imagined can inspire poetry that draws on techniques we associate with the ekphrastic tradition (which centers works of art) and contemporary ecopoetics (which centers the environment), and how this blending of poetic techniques can not only enliven description but also deepen emotional resonance.  

Cecily Parks is the author of three poetry collections, including The Seeds, which was a finalist for the 2026 PEN/Voelcker Award and named one of NPR's Books We Love. She is the guest editor of Best New Poets 2025 and editor of the anthology The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses. Her poems appear in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Nation, The New Republic, several editions of The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA Program at Texas State University and lives in Austin.

Teton County Library and Jackson Hole Writers are excited to launch our new writing workshop series, Word by Word, focusing on the craft of writing. This event with poet Cecily Parks is our first workshop.