Poet CAConrad has successfully used (Soma)tic poetry rituals to overcome destructive and debilitating depression after the murder of his boyfriend Earth (aka Mark Holmes). He has also created writing rituals using the night sky to design homemade star constellations, another ritual to experience what the impact of hearing the word “drone” has on the human body, and many others from talking with trees, ghosts, translating Shakespeare’s sonnets with crystals, and coping with the destroyed wilderness of our planet.

We will look at our lives and where we fit into the world with the creation of rituals devised to produce the language for our poems. We will work together to create a space of “extreme present” inside the rituals where being anything but present is next to impossible. These rituals and their resulting poems will help us see the creative viability in everything around us and help us end our alienation from our planet and from one another. Creative people are survivors and we will discuss the important role of artists for the future health and happiness of our species.