Podcast appearances and mentions of Holly J Hughes

Edie Hill's Spectral Spirits was commissioned by The Crossing and premiered in Philadelphia and New York City in 2019. The Crossing describes the piece as a “memorial to lost birds,” structured in four pillars representing four bird species that are extinct. The 30-minute piece pairs pastoral musical textures of poetry by Holly J. Hughes with observations of Henry David Thoreau, Gert Goebel, Christopher Cokinos, Lucien M. Turner, Paul A. Johnsgard, and Alexander Wilson to create a nostalgic journey the composer describes as an “emotional sequence of falling in love with a bird, followed by grieving its loss.”To purchase or for more information about this release, please visit;Born – Navona Records

A thought and theme from Wendell Berry, “coming into the peace of wild things.”A story from the Alaskan cabin with an astonishing encounter with a large, magnificent buck.Reading liner notes from a collaborative DVD project with Kurt Hoelting, ASP podcast #5.“Wildness is a process and not a place.  Nothing stands alone.  The environment is inside as well as outside.  The human mind is wild habitat.  Poetry is the wild edge of language.”An excerpt from ASP #4 with writer, editor, fisher-poet, Holly J. Hughes.Holly reflects on our times, her recent book, Hold Fast and reads her poem, “Credo.”A shout-out to contributing musician, Christian ArthurGratitude for connection, health care workers, and a full embrace of this time of year.

In the season finale of the Bainbridge Pod Accomplice, we'll hear from Sara Brickman, Artist in Residence at The Bloedel Reserve, in conversation with Holly Hughes. They'll perform a reading of poems from their manuscript Little Houdini, and share poems from Field Guide – a series of poems that look at the body as a landscape, and discuss Sara's relationship with The Bloedel Reserve. ABOUT SARA Sara Brickman is a writer, performer, and community organizer from Ann Arbor, MI. The winner of the 2015 Split This Rock Poetry Prize, and a five-time member of Seattle slam teams, Sara has received grants and scholarships from the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Yiddish Book Center, 4Culture, and more. A BOAAT Writers Fellow and a Ken Warfel Fellow for Poetry in Community, Sara's poems and prose appear in Narrative, Adriot, BOAAT, The Indiana Review, Muzzle, and the anthologies Ghosts of Seattle Past, The Dead Animal Handbook and Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls. Sara holds an MFA from the University of Virginia and lives in Seattle, where she teaches writing to youth and adults, and parents a cat named Latke. “My first collection, Little Houdini, catalogs my own experiences of abuse to turn a lens on gendered violence and the lasting impacts of trauma. These poems use the archetype of escape artists to challenge the victim narrative I was expected to claim as a survivor of sexual violence, and explore escape and the body: whether that be a rebellion against binary gender or the numbness and self-distancing that PTSD forges. We often speak of nature as a form of escape: we talk of “unplugging,” “leaving the world behind” or conversely, of the natural world being the “real” world. But who and what gets to be “real,” and who is able to escape to another world, has deep political implications for those already othered by society. Even access to the outdoors is a fraught question if you do not fall cleanly on one side of the gender-binary: for us, entering nature carries as many fears for our own safety as life in the city. The plants and animals may be the only ones who do not question our validity as ourselves, yet even alone with them, we carry that weight. ABOUT HOLLY HUGHES Holly J. Hughes is the author of Hold Fast, Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of the award-winning anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease. Her fine art chapbook Passings received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2017. She's a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University's low-residency MFA program, where she served on the staff for 13 years, in addition to teaching writing at community colleges for several decades. She currently leads writing and mindfulness workshops in Alaska and the northwest and consults as a writing coach. 

"When I look back on my life, I see that birds have always been part of my family, speaking to me, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly... I can't imagine my life without birds, even if their presence is fleeting. They are my family, my relations, without them the world would be a less vibrant, less musical place." from Passings - Holly J. Hughes. Holly is a writing teacher, poet and essayist with a long-time interest in writing, nature and contemplative practice. She has taught writing workshops at Fishtrap, the Rainier Writers Workshop, and Edmonds Write on the Sound, as well as teaching at Edmonds Community College, where she co-directed the Convergence Writer's Series. Her fine-art chapbook Passings received an American Book Award in 2017. A former commercial salmon fisherman and mariner, she has spent 30 summers working in Alaska, most recently as a naturalist, and currently divides her time between Indianola and Chimacum, Washington. https://www.hollyjhughes.com/ *Recorded Summer 2019* The current Holden Village community of nearly 40 staff all successfully pass a strict quarantine period with social distancing, masks, and COVID testing upon entering or reentering the Village. To learn more about Holden Village, visit: http://www.holdenvillage.org or to listen to more audio recordings visit: http://audio.holdenvillage.org The Holden Village Podcast is accessible through Apple iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeart Radio, and most podcast apps. To contact the podcast author, podcast@holdenvillage.org

Reflections on Extinct Birds: A Poetry and Prose Reading with Holly J. Hughes and BJ Hollars in September 2016