Galen Hecht
College of the Atlantic
Project
Poetic Cartography: Charting People’s Place in Three Great Watersheds
Sweden, Finland, India, and Chile
The poetry of rivers is connection. Rivers transcend cultural and political boundaries—a commons, a source of immense spirituality, a place to wash and play, a valuable resource, and a necessity for life. Watersheds—rivers and their surrounding geographies—are essential, dynamic bodies of topography that define people in their places. On my Watson year, I will immerse myself in the poetry of rivers, voyaging from headwaters towards the sea to learn about the connections that people form with place, asking how and why we humans treat natural resources the way we do and how we can better co-exist.