Guided by writers who know these islands well, we’ll draft essays and discuss the poetry, stories, and histories of the Central and South Pacific Ocean regions, and of the North Atlantic. We’ll begin by listening to new Pacific Islander poets and a memoirist; then, we'll paddle into time immemorial with epic tales of Kamapua’a—a being who could appear as a hog or as a human—from the Hawaiian creation story, The Kumulipo. We’ll observe a soul searching for life near an abandoned nuclear waste site in the Marshall Islands. Next, we'll hear from Bermuda-born writers; take a deep dive off Nonsuch Island inside a Bathysphere; and explore the Atlantic sea floor, thanks to mapmaker Marie Tharp. We will pursue the pleasures, ideas, and formal strategies of literature; attention, too, will be given to orature, the oral art that has carried myths and legends for thousands of years, at once preserving cultures, and entertaining and educating listeners, ourselves among them. We'll create three essays: two analytical essays and a five-element hybrid essay.

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