I went to this conference/workshop/retreat mostly because I wanted to pick up some ideas on having students do basic nature journals, and because I wanted to camp in the Sangre de Cristos, which a previous mentor of mine always raved about, but it turned out to be much richer than that.  I met a couple dozen really smart and interesting people, all of them passionate about nature, most of them academics who were willing to work across disciplinary boundaries.  People like Nancy Holmes, who said at one point how much she appreciated the retreat because she was starting to feel like a poet again, and not just an administrator or a paper-grader.

Because this is just a reading and not an interview, a little (very little) background on her.

http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/creative/faculty/nholmes.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ux6mO3tFJQ

I'm pretty ignorant where poetry is concerned, but I know what I like when I hear it.  Nancy's first poem reminded me of last summer's BEAR WEEK episode 10.  I didn't connect in the same way with the second one, but I don't think I was supposed to.  I hope my students wouldn't, either, but I'm going to play it for them and see.

Next time we'll dive back into science with a virtual visit to the Galopagos, where we'll meet the vampire finch, among other things, courtesy of another Lama Bean.  In the meantime, check out In Search Of, season 2, episode 8, "Ogopogo."  If you can't find that (or if you like computer graphics more than Leonard Nimoy's voice), you can settle for MonsterQuest's treatment of the same subject.

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