From spring 2015 to fall 2016, Hazel White and I worked as poets from a makeshift studio at the UC Botanical Garden, in Berkeley, California. Leading public walks and interviewing staff and visitors, we borrowed the form of the botanical catalog and created an annotated, illustrated index of all that we captured.
This project was a chance to take poetry off the page and work with a community—to produce a substantial public poem, four videos and site-specific essays. Through it, we discovered poetry as a practice alive outside ourselves and wrestling with contemporary matter.
Biotic Portal was supported with a generous grant from the Creative Work Fund.
“Good Night Garden” is the fourth and final site video made for Biotic Portal; Hazel White and Denise Newman cover the signage to prepare the garden for the night creatures