Spring Creek Project Presents: Can Poetry Save the World? Or Is It Really Saving Us So That We Can Try to Save the World? 

For decades, John Calderazzo's writing and teaching have been inspired by the natural world. After freelancing for magazines, including Audubon, he came to Colorado State University in 1986, founded the English Department’s creative nonfiction writing program, and published essays and stories in Orion, High Country News, and many other journals on the ways in which humans interact with nature.

His books include a children’s science book sold at national parks, a freelance-writing guide, and Rising Fire: Volcanoes & Our Inner Lives, about volcanoes and human culture around the world. His work has been anthologized in Best American Nature Writing, Best Travel Adventure Stories, and Here: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press).

His new poetry collection, In the Soup, explores topic such as glacier melt in Peru, Western wildfires, Amazonian birds, and ways in which we can avoid being shadowed and paralyzed by Earth-worry.  Winner of a Best CSU Teacher award, he's mentored students who have won some of the highest honors in American literature and journalism.