The region draining into a river, river system, or other body of water. A critical point that marks a division or a change of course, a turning point. As the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival convenes for the fifth time in downtown Berkeley at the Civic Center Park in Berkeley, it is a good time to remember why Poetry Flash , why poets and artists are addressing this 'watershed' idea. Watershed grew out of the germinal idea and intitiative Robert Hass conceived during his U.S. Poet Laureateship. Out of all this has grown a wonderful, individual festival that is a pleasure and privilege to be part of.
Watershed is, well, a 'watershed'.
One of the many layered interpretations of the word is a reaching for critical mass, understanding and action, a 'tipping point' of poets and artists and environmentalists, a gathering of and for people who are actively thinking about our earth, or who would like to. Matters of the environment are too important to be left to those labeled or self-identified as environmentalists alone. We all live here. We all have bodies. Poets like Al Young and Jane Hirshfield and Sharon Doubiago and other poets who have read at Watershed know it.