Zion and Poetry -- a natural combination

Have you heard of the 2011 Poetry in the Park Event at Zion National Park? Me neither until today! Diane Glancy, professor emeritus, publisher of books and poetry and recent filmmaker will be featured at this year's event and what better place to talk about and write poetry than at Zion!

The workshop costs $60 unless you are a member of Zion Natural History Association (ZNHA) or Utah State Poetry Society, both of which give a 20% discount. You can register and get full details for the workshop at the link above. You'll need to hurry though, the workshop is March 25th!

At this time of cuts at every level of governments, we need to be very appreciative of the partial funding of the workshop from the Utah Arts Council. Also, if you feel so inclined, please contact your legislators at the local, state and national levels to ask for their continued support of the Arts. I heard just today the living without the arts referred to as "living in a sterile, white box." What would our world be without the Arts-- without the creativity, imagination, beauty that makes life enjoyable? Food and water may sustain the body but the Arts sustain the soul.

Why art and place?

About six months ago I received a message on Facebook asking for the fifteen most influential albums in my life. Hmm…I never finished filling out the message but it got me thinking – or, more accurately, continued my thinking about why music and indeed, art in general, matters to me. The answer is a long one and a continual process. For starters, art does matter to me. So does place. So why “art and place”? I believe we are influenced, however much we realize it, by WHERE we are. If character is influenced by environment, then certainly art, which is an outward expression of one’s soul and one’s experiences, can also be influenced by place. Thus, this blog is dedicated to the love of art in its various forms and how that love is also connected to place.

Importance of Place

Everything and everyone is in a place; that place changes according to both geography and personal perception. We want to talk about the elements of both place and art.

To start us on this journey from place to place, showing and perhaps discussing the art, natural, man-made, interpreted, etc. I will just say that I am, at this moment, in Springdale, a small town just outside of Zion National Park in Utah, in the United States. It's a big world but this will give a mental map of my "place." The art is the beauty of nature. If you've never been to Zion National Park, I invite you to find your way to this incredible canvas of natural art. You can find your own way to share your impressions.