Released: September 6, 2019
Poets will read by Ethyl the Whale sculpture, public invited to free event on campus
Santa Fe Community College will host a Santa Fe 100 Thousand Poets for Change event from 1 to 3 p.m. Sept. 28 outdoors by the Ethyl the Whale sculpture on the college campus, 6401 Richards Ave. Michael Rothenberg organizes the international event. In Santa Fe, poet Miriam Sagan (former director of the creative writing program at SFCC) and Santa Fe Poet Laureate Elizabeth Jacobson are organizing the Santa Fe event.
More than 25 poets will participate. Each poet will read one poem that speaks to peace, justice, sustainability – social, environmental and political change. Readers include Jacobson, Joan Logghe, Tom Ireland, Behyzad Dayeny, Jamie Figueroa, John Macker, Barbara Rockman, Serena Rodriguez, Barbara Robidoux, Mary McGinnis, Shuli Lamden and many others. The readers include community poets, as well as staff, faculty, students, alumni and friends of SFCC.
According to Rothenberg, the last of the Santa Fe 100 Thousand Poets for Change event was in 2011. This year, the Santa Fe event is the only event in New Mexico. Due to an enthusiastic response, all of the available time slots for poets to read at this year’s Santa Fe event are filled. “We hope other poets and the public will attend to support this important international event,” Sagan said.
Since one of the event’s main themes is sustainability, Sagan said she was pleased to have the event at the Ethyl the Whale sculpture. The Santa Fe art collective Meow Wolf, SFCC and the larger community welcomed Ethyl the Whale, named for polyethylene plastic, to campus on April 22, in honor of Earth Day. The artists Joel Dean Stockdill and Yustina Salnikova were commissioned by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to create Ethyl.
Meow Wolf purchased Ethyl and then had the sculpture moved from San Francisco to Santa Fe. Meow Wolf underwrote all of the costs for Ethyl’s relocation to SFCC, and the SFCC Foundation and Art on Campus Committee supported the installation. The 82-foot life-sized sculpture of a blue whale is made of hand-recycled plastic trash to bring awareness to the ever-growing urgency of the negative impact plastics have on our environment. For more information and a map to Ethyl’s location, visit sfcc.edu/ethyl-the-whale/
Linda Cassel, SFCC’s director of art on campus said, “The 100 Thousand Poets event is an ideal way to showcase and explore Ethyl’s message about sustainability. We hope the public will take this opportunity to come and see Ethyl, as well as hear the powerful readings from the participating poets.”
For more than 35 years, Santa Fe Community College has been the gateway to success for individuals and the community by providing affordable, high quality educational programs that serve the social, cultural, technological, and economic needs of a diverse community. SFCC is a designated Best for Vets and Military Friendly school. The college serves more than 12,000 students per year in its credit, noncredit and adult programs. For further information, visit sfcc.edu or call 505-428-1000. Follow us: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn.
