HERE is the PLACE

Catrice Greer is a Baltimore-based poet, writer, editor and teaching artist. She is a 2021 Pushcart Prize Nominee, served as a Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2020 Poetin-Residence and a 2022 Yellow Arrow Publishing Writer in Residence. Catrice is a 2022 Storyteller Foundation Rainbow Fund full scholarship recipient for the Her Spirit Story Summit writer’s conference.

Greer is founder and owner of a traumainformed, mindfulness-based, nature and poetry workshop series, Into The Green. She is a teaching artist supported by Teaching Artists of the Mid Atlantic (TAMA) and Maryland Creative Classrooms (MC3). She holds a baccalaureate in English Literature from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Greer partners as an artist and advocate with NAMI (National Alliance of Mental Illness),Healing City Baltimore, Pro Bono Counseling, Behavioral Health System Baltimore (BHSB) and HUT (Healing Us Together) to promote mental health awareness. Catrice is an active volunteer docent and teaching artist for Cylburn Arboretum Friends (CAF), a beloved neighboring green space. Her poem, to the right, will be featured in the future Nature Education Center.

Here is the Place

by Catrice Greer

Where is the place you find solace? Is it where nature meets us as family not foe. … where the trees bend in the wind touching leaves in silence? … where flora and fauna spring forward verdant Perhaps it is where the woodland animals frolic leaping from branch to branch, rustle the leaves in playful somersaults, or soar above and through the lush canopies as whistling sentries calling forth the hush. Into the green into the green into the green we go.

Cylburn Arboretum Friends: Was there a particular moment or place that inspired this poem? In particular I am struck by the title, Here is the Place.

Catrice Greer: At first the poem was Where is the Place, but upon later editing, I decided Here resonated a lot more for me. My home has lots of plants in it. I love being outside. I love being outdoors at places like

Cylburn. How do I choose the “where” for this poem? Here is exactly wherever I am standing in nature at that time. Imagine you are taking the emotion of it with you in a backpack and unpacking it wherever you are. The differentiation between where and here is important.

CAF: Do you have a favorite phrase or line in the poem?

CG: The line about the frolicking always resonates for me. When I look out my window, I see squirrels and woodland life, jumping and playing and living their lives and sometimes just having a ball. There is one particular squirrel that I am convinced must have been a gymnast in a past life!

CAF: When did you begin considering yourself a literary artist and poet?

CG: I started writing when I was eight, with intention. I knew by the time I was 10 that there was something to this that was bigger than me. I didn’t understand it, but it was so compelling. I was a rather precocious child and started reading very early. By the time I was nine, I was reading things like Hawthorne. My parents owned tall bookcases full of books. I wanted to know all of the words and asked so many questions that my parents bought–bless them–the World Book encyclopedias specifically for me. They encouraged me to read, study, learn and explore.

CAF: You are very involved here at Cylburn, from our garden club, to serving as a docent, to contributing this very poem to our future Nature Education Center Exhibit. What got you involved, and why is Cylburn a special place to you?

CG: In 2001, I purchased my first home, a townhouse. Cylburn had a tulip dig yearly in the spring that I read about in a community newsletter. I attended and I just kept coming after that. I started to visit Cylburn a little more regularly in 2019, just before the pandemic, drawn by the Wednesday walks. I went to as many as I could get to. I was out there at first with my cane and my walking staff. The following year, I became a member formally. Things just kind of progressed from there. I kept coming and kept learning.

CAF: Can you tell me about the Into The Green-Eco therapy and Poetry workshops?

CG: I wanted to impart to others what being in community with nature and healing alongside nature looks like. During the pandemic, people realized how much nature meant to them. One of the first places people bee-lined to were parks and green spaces. I feel trees are our community elders and hold a lot of information about our land, what has happened here, the soil, the air. They tell the stories of generations. I want my workshop to impart to people that we don’t just take from nature, we are a part of it.

I wanted to take all of my natural inclinations and pair it with poetry as an artist. I wanted to be able to create something that gives people a trauma-informed way to heal or emote their thoughts and emotions. We’re humans, we go through stuff: loneliness, grieving, mental health diagnoses, and challenges. The pandemic brought people to the arts to find a way to find their voice and emote their voice. I want people to feel empowered to listen to the wise parts of themselves during healing. Marrying art therapy with the lessons we receive from nature seemed like a natural pairing.

CAF: Is there anything else you would like to share?

CG: It is my hope that when people come to Cylburn they spend mindful time here learning, immersing themselves in natural science and taking care of themselves. When they read the poem and interact with the Nature Education Center installation, I hope it stays with them as they go out into the green spaces. It is important that we be good neighbors to our green spaces and other living creatures.

Artist website: www.catricegreer.com