Ecology of Memory: Multimedia Transgenerational Ecopoetics
Explore environmental justice, ecological grief, and environmental memory through innovative multimedia poetry.
This Online course invites poets, eco-artists, and interdisciplinary creatives to explore the profound relationship between environmental memory, transgenerational storytelling, and multimedia poetics. Designed for participants with a foundation in writing and an openness to experimentation, this course will use poetry as a primary method of inquiry into environmental justice, ecological grief, and ancestral connection – emphasising transgenerational dialogues and ecological memory through multimedia expressions – and culminates in the creation of a thematic body of work
Led by poet, translator, and multimedia artist Elizabeth Torres (Madam Neverstop), the course centres on five key creative phases: writing, sounding, visualizing (art), visualizing (video), and performance. Drawing from environmental criticism, affect theory, and poetics of memory, the course emphasizes embodied, archival, and community-driven creation. Each session focuses on a specific mode of expression, supported by theoretical readings, transgenerational conversations, local environment engagement, and artistic practice.
The course is grounded in the evolving field of the Environmental Humanities and second-wave ecocriticism (Buell, Heise, Alaimo), which emphasize socio-ecological entanglements, environmental justice, and the affective, lived experience of ecological crisis, as well as Fritjof Capra’s Principles of Life. We will also draw from Tom Bristow’s lexicon of “Memory” (2014), each week aligning with one of the classical elements of poetics: Mimesis (representation), Ethos (character), Mythos (plot), Opsis (spectacle), Peripeteia (reversal), and Melos (melody).
Participants are invited to embody the archive, becoming living repositories of cultural and ecological memory. The course integrates oral history, acoustic ecology, eco-visuality, and ritual performance to honour both inherited knowledge and emergent creative forms. Throughout the course, participants will produce a body of interdisciplinary work ready for public presentation, submission to literary journals, and/or inclusion in the Poetic Phonotheque archive.
5 fortnightly sessions over 10 weeks, starting 8 October 2025. No live chats. Suitable for UK & International students.
Concessions & Accessibility
To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
What to Expect
Please check the left hand side of this page for information on how this course works in practice, under the heading ‘Course Style‘. If you’re unsure as to what any of the terms there mean, or if this course is a good fit for you, please visit our What to Expect page which includes some further information on how our courses function.
Image credit: madamneverstop
About Elizabeth Torres (Madam Neverstop) 
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Elizabeth Torres is a Colombian-American poet, translator, and multimedia artist based in Denmark. She is the recipient of the 2022 Ambroggio Prize from the Academy of American Poets for her bilingual collection La Lotería: Sorteo Nocturno / The Lottery: Nocturnal Sweepstakes (University of Arizona Press, 2023) and author of over 20 books of poetry in various languages.
Her interdisciplinary work spans poetry, sound art, visual storytelling, performance, and experimental film. She holds an MFA in Performing Arts from the Danish National School of Performing Arts and a background in Liberal Arts: Media & Film and Fine Arts.
Elizabeth is the founder of Red Door Magazine & Gallery and creator of the Poetic Phonotheque – a global multimedia archive of contemporary voices in poetry. Her work focuses on identity, environmental memory, neurodiversity, and the use of poetics as radical documentation. She has presented at international venues in over 40 countries, including the AWP Conference, Verve Poetry Festival, and PEN Finland, and taught in various universities of the U.S, the University of Wales, the University of Copenhagen, and for several years as a tutor of the Poetry School in the U.K. Website: madamneverstop.com | Archive: poeticphonotheque.com Magazine: www.reddoormagazine.com
"Poetry School has helped me carve and find time for my writing and poetry in my day-to-day life. The community it helps nurture and the range and wealth of courses offered is a true sanctuary. Thank you."
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Poetry Through the Lens of Multilingual Writing with Astrid Alben