2025 Conference: Seasons of the Witch Poetry Reading

Thursday March 27, 2025, 7:30 PM

Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Seasons of the Witch: A Poetry Reading  in Honor of Patricia Monaghan

“Poetry is an oral art. Although since the invention of writing, poetry has been written down, it begins with the voice. The Inuit people of the arctic recognize this, for they use a single word to indicate “breath” and “poem.” A poem is not a picture but a song; it lives best when spoken, chanted, sung. 

“Earth-centered people must reclaim the voice of magic. We must make songs of the cycles of the year and of our own lives; we must chant the names of our own divinities; we must remember the powers of earth and air, fire and water, that ancient people honored. As we do so, we not only reconnect with their wisdom, we bring that wisdom to life and breath again.”  (Patricia Monaghan, Introduction to Seasons of the Witch, Third Edition, 2004)

Tonight we celebrate Patricia Monaghan  as a poet and our inspirational leader. Her words, her ideas, and her visionary works continue to feed the fires of our own creativity. We are grateful to the five poets who present their work in honor of her lasting contribution to scholarship and the arts.

Flow: Our five featured readers are Annie Finch, Ann Filemyr, Judy Grahn, Monica Mody, and Marna Scooter Cascadia.  In keeping with Patricia’s organic, ever-flowing view of the art of poetry, these women will decide the order of their readings on site. Pat’s poems are read by Miriam Robbins Dexter, Mary Jo Neitz, Letecia Layson, Sid Reger, and Dawn Work-Makinne.

Ann Filemyr  is the author of six books of poetry.. She speaks on the Rising of the Divine Feminine as connected with deepening Earth-based consciousness and leads a monthly New Moon Circle for gathering and grounding. She is the Founder/Director of the PhD in Visionary Practice & Regenerative Leadership at Southwestern College in Santa Fe.

Annie Finch is the author of seven poetry collections including Among the Goddesses (awarded the Sarasvati Award). Her other works include poetry translation, verse theater, writings on poetic craft, ritual, and the Divine Feminine, and the anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion. Based in NYC, she teaches and performs worldwide. 

Judy Grahn, Ph.D., has been writing about women’s spirituality and women’s contributions to human culture for over fifty years. She taught her own work in Women’s Spirituality Master’s Programs at New College of California and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology for over thirteen years total. Her work on Inanna includes Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power; and three book-length poems on the goddess of love, power, and beauty.

Marna Scooter Cascadia designs collaborative writing games for climate justice futures. Recent work appears in the International Symposium of Poetic Inquiry series, and in the We’Moon. Marna serves as Southwestern’s Associate Director of the Program in Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership. She tends Goddess gardens and earth dreams in Pacific Cascadia.

Monica Mody is the author of poetry collections Wild Fin (Weavers Press, 2024) and Bright Parallel (Copper Coin, 2023), the cross-genre Kala Pani (1913 Press, 2013), three chapbooks, and other creative and academic work that has been published widely and presented at international and US-based conferences and talks. Visit www.drmonicamody.com.

About our friend: Patricia Monaghan was a poet, a writer, a spiritual activist, and an influential figure in the contemporary women’s spirituality movement.  Her own experience of the natural world and her deep connections with the other-than-human were significant for her adopting the worldwide vision of the earth as feminine. She saw the connection between ecological damage and the oppression of the feminine in Western society. Much of her work explored the question of the role of feminine power in our world, in an inclusive and multicultural way.

The creation and development of goddess scholarship were high priorities for Pat.  When she and Sid Reger compared their visions, they jumped at the chance to create ASWM. Pat was devoted to mentoring new and emerging scholars; endowing ASWM’s  Kore Award for the Best Dissertation.  Pat’s commitment to supporting new work, to call attention to goddess scholarship within society and academia at large, led her to create our prestigious Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology. Her vision and creativity continue to inspire  our work to advance goddess scholarship.

 

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.