This May, I read at an event at KIN that showcased art, music, and literature from the 60+ awardees of grants from the Treasure Valley COVID-19 Cultural Commissioning Fund. I read some pieces from my Surel’s Place Residency.
In August, I got to be an Artist-in-Residence at Surel’s Place, an art center in Garden City that hosts artists from around the world.
The center was originally the home of Surel Lee Mitchell, an Idaho-based visual artist who helped create the Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District.
Continue readingThis July, I read poems from a project about COVID-19 and the Second Plague Pandemic (1347-1700) in the Bloom Reading Series for Storyfort at the Idaho Botanical Garden.
The project, which tells the stories of impacted individuals through primary and secondary sources, is funded by a grant from the COVID Cultural Commissioning Fund.
Continue readingLast month, I got to help plan and host an Earth Day Poetry Reading as part of the BSU Department of Sustainability’s Earth Week 2019.
I was joined by Kat Davis, Lisa Hecht, and Pei-Lin Yu in planning and hosting the event.
I love the arid, mountain landscapes of the West. I love the native wildflower and animal species that live in mountain ecosystems. I love the aridity of the desert. I love its total lack of humidity and 100+ degree heat.
But with the aridity of the western landscape comes fire season with its forest fires and wildfires.
Last summer there were forest fires burning in Idaho and two adjoining states at around the same time. The smoke from all of them was blowing down into Boise. For weeks, the city was ensconced in a hazy layer of burning, lung-clogging smoke.
This is normal.
It’s like that in every state in the West.
hannahrodabaugh.com 