As part of the annual AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, Robin Beth Schaer will take part in the panel discussion “Pollen, Rust, Lakes, & Plains: Writing Poems in the Midwest” with Caryl Pagel, Zach Savich, and Nick Gulig. This panel of Midwest poets will consider what forms—ode, mess, palimpsest, somatic, plein air—might best connect a region’s particulars to global transformation. How can poetry account for the material conditions of the environment, tethering regional circumstances to questions of conservation, extinction, or the nonhuman? Poets will share experiences of writing their region and useful place-based prompts, texts, or fieldwork for landscapes that combine the urban, industrial, and agricultural.