Writer friends RESIDENCy
June 13 – 27, 2024
Ellen Stone
Ellen Stone grew up above the north branch of the Susquehanna River in the Appalachian Mountains of rural Pennsylvania. She taught in Kansas and Michigan public schools for 35 years while raising three daughters with her husband. Ellen advises a poetry club at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, co-hosts a monthly poetry series, Skazat! and co-edits the new literary journal, Public School Poetry.
She is the author of The Solid Living World (Michigan Writers’ Cooperative Press, 2013) and What Is in the Blood (Mayapple Press, 2020). Ellen’s poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in Midwest Review, Cold Mountain Review, About Place and Third Coast. Ellen’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net. www.ellenstone.org.
Artist Statement:
I have always thought of art as illumination, shedding light on the world. I write to explore what I am seeing or feeling and try to make sense of it. The natural world continually astounds me with its exquisite detail. Poetry helps me understand how nature seems to speak directly to human dilemmas. I am working to understand how people can transcend loss and conflict through the palate of the natural world. My Good Hart project will be a poetry project focused on coping with grief using my daily interactions and observations of nature. I want poetry to be a means of understanding how the connection we have to the natural world is as critical as the bond we have to each other. This is particularly important in this time of our rapidly changing climate, as well as our deepening political divisions. As I struggle with feeling angry, sad, or scared about change and loss, I know that poetry based in nature centers and teaches me. I want my poetry to be a vessel, a receptacle. I will have to wait and see what it holds.
Community Engagement
