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There’s something comforting about being alone, being hidden, even if I’m hidden in plain sight. This year, I began a residency at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in East Bethel, Minnesota, a small city on the outskirts of the suburbs north of the Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, for the uninitiated). CCESR—you can find out more on your own—is a large ecological research site that runs as part of the University of Minnesota (although the studies go well beyond the university itself).
But I’m not a scientist.
I’m a writer. Or at least that’s the role I’m playing here at Cedar Creek. As one of the two current artists-in-residence, and the only creative writer, I have access to the usually limited access site, which gives me the opportunity to function in that strange place as both insider and outsider: the artist in the science field.
And while that might coincide well with the first line of this—because sometimes I can be hidden in plain sight—the direct meaning is that on this site there are plenty of places to observe and write and note and take photos with no one else around, to be “lost” in the swamp or fields or woods (gorgeous oak savannah) while the scientists and staff are elsewhere. I’ve always enjoyed that feeling, that sense of disappearing into the wild—although I’m either too cowardly or too self-aware to actually disappear in the wild—and being in the outdoors in probably my most natural home.
But at CCESR, it’s a bit different. Even with the direct absence of people, the work is still all around me while I’m meandering through the seeming wilderness. The research projects, too, are often hidden from view—perhaps unintentionally, but that’s what nature does—while they are also in plain sight, right there on the edge of the path or on the side of that tree or that brook or that bog or that upturned root ball.
So my project, a series of poems exploring the intersections between science and nature and humanity, must inherently look at the hidden-in-the-open. The things we see but ignore. The things we forget to see. But also what we truly see when we take the time to look and observe, which, in so many ways, is what modern ecology is all about: observing what we’ve often neglected to observe, even if it is there, right in front of us (or, in some cases, below the surface of what is there in front of us). I’ve really just begun this project, drafting a number of poems based on brief observations, conversations with scientists, participation in educational programs, and reading through some of those studies. I’m not a scientist, but it is with respect and care that I embark on this experience, learning more than I’ll ever give back, I’m sure.
As an aside, this is the first real “poetry project” I’ve done where I have a focus and intention even before I began writing; I have goals for my writing and a sense of the direction I’m going, but, as with science, this hypothesis—what I think will come of the project—might very well turn out differently, might become what I’d never expected—because artists, too, must always keep their senses aware and be ready for the world we’re exploring to throw us for a loop. And, I’ll readily admit, this knowing and not knowing is both exhilarating and frightening (although perhaps not so different than writing a novel or a single poem—there’s an idea, but the path and the end remain in the deep shadows until just before you arrive).
This blog, then, might be an attempt to bring this project into plain sight, even if most of the poems remain hidden until the project is done. A few lines might appear from time to time (and CCESR subscribers could very well see drafts of some poems—hint, hint), but my intent—whatever that even amounts to—is to reflect on the movement and process more-so than the art produced.