Expressing the Earth: a geopoetics gathering in Hawick

The inaugural Expressing the Earth Gathering is happening Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th October. It will be a three-day event, running across sites in and near Hawick. It will offer experiences that connect us with the land and the earth around us, deepening our love for it and our poetic response to it. At a time when we are becoming ever more urban as a human population, how do we engage our hearts and minds to connect with the more than human world?

The weekend will open on the Friday evening with a screening of the film Expressing the Earth, which gives the gathering its name. Afterwards there will be a chance to put questions to those who made it: Glenda Rome, who directed the film, Claire Pençak, the dance artist featured in it, and Norman Bissell, its producer. Beforehand, there is a buffet supper at a local restaurant.

Saturday will be given over to practice: a day of workshops in haiku and creative writing, in sensuous attunement to the land, and in slow photography, with art exhibitions running alongside and more still to be announced. In the evening there is another buffet dinner then the room will turn over to an open mic of poetry and music. On Sunday we will walk up-river by a tributary of the Tweed, with a local lunch at the end of it and a labyrinth installation waiting there to be walked through and reflected on.

The gathering is open to everyone, members and non-members alike, those long steeped in geopoetics and those meeting the word for the first time. You will be welcome to come for the whole weekend or for a single session.

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