Mapmakers Alumni Institute | "Global Perspective II: Ecopoetics and Eco-writing" with Sudeep Sen and Rhony Bhopla MFA '22

Pacific University's MFA in Writing presents the latest installment of the Mapmakers Alumni Institute, featuring Sudeep Sen, author of Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation, and Mapmaker Alumna MFA ‘22 Rhony Bhopla. This episode of the Institute, "Global Perspective II: Ecopoetics and Eco-writing," is inspired by Sudeep Sen’s “Hope: Light Leaks,” a poem dedicated to Kwame Dawes. This conversation will explore adjacency with the Black Arts Movement, as well as the relationship between societal disparities and the rapidly changing landscape caused by climate change. Literary topics will include the through-line in a poem, transmedia, and the question, “If nature is reckless, where does recklessness fit in the process of writing?” All communities are invited to join this public webinar which is a featured session in the January 2023 Pacific University MFA Residency.

The Kwame Dawes Mapmakers Scholarship is named after Mapmaker, an early collection of his poems. Dawes has been a leader in the program’s mission to diversify the writers we serve and create equity. In helping us name the scholarship, he said, “The title characterizes what I think of myself as both a writer and as an advocate for the work of others and as someone who tries to open new territories for those who have not had access.”

First offered in January 2018, this scholarship is awarded to exceptional students of color.