The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

How does darkness influence our art, our prayer, our perspective? Given the explosion of artificial light over the past 150 years, how do we navigate the loss of darkness and what—exactly—are we losing? In this panel, we’ll explore ways to enrich our creative practices through mindful engagement with darkness, literal and metaphorical. We’ll also explore the profound effects artificial light has on the natural world. We hope to converse across theology, ecology, poetry and non-fiction, touching on such topics as winter solstice, via negativa, midnight prayer (‘the night office’), and the importance of the night sky.