Encountering Place: Composing Site-Specific Poetry

How can a poem reflect a place and its complex past, present, and futures - as opposed to covering them over? What is the syntax of a place, its diction, and its forms? What do I know in a specific place that I can know nowhere else, and what does this place know that I do not know myself? In this workshop, we will engage in the poetry of place—how attention and attachment, as well as eco- and documentary poetics, can be used to generate civically engaged art. We will focus on engaging with questions and tools which will hopefully outfit attendees with frameworks to compose ongoing poems of place in their communities.

Attendees will meet at the picnic tables in Kingsbury Commons.

• Parking is available on the street and in a small parking lot near the park entrance.

• Accessible restrooms are available on-site

The second half of the workshop will involve, in part, a loose walking/writing activity along the creek. Attendees will navigate the park individually or in small groups to generate material for a poem.

Please wear comfortable walking shoes and weather-appropriate clothing. I recommend bringing water and any snacks you may need, as well as a camp chair or blanket in case we need to gather away from the picnic tables and sit in a nearby field.

For the workshop, bring writing materials (preferably a notebook, etc. but if a laptop/phone/tablet is more accessible bring that!) and a poem about place that you particularly enjoy.

C. REES (they/them)

is a nonbinary poet, educator, and bookseller. They were raised in Pennsylvania (Lënapehòkink) and currently live on Coahuiltecan, Comanche, Jumanos, Lipan Apache, Sana, and Tonkawa land, what is called "Austin, TX." C. holds an MFA in Poetry from the New Writers Project. They are ideologically and materially committed to a free Palestine.

Is a civic augmented-reality art exhibition produced by MIT Open Documentary Lab in collaboration with local artists, scholars, and community workers. Layers of Place: Austin consists of six site-specific AR art installations scattered across downtown Austin. Each installation explores the city's layered pasts and presents, transforming Austin’s public spaces into portals for memory, dialogue, and imagination.

Beginning in Summer 2026, six Austin poets were commissioned to spend deep time with the Layers of Place: Austin artworks, creating an original poem in response to each project. Follow their poetic traces through memory, history, and the living present.