As a writer, I am dubious about whether creative writing can be "taught," suspicious of an art form that, when everything is flowing, brings words that link themselves together with an almost supernatural effortlessness. But one conversation with Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez, the youngest author, at just 19, to present a workshop during this year's Nature of Words, has opened my mind. Ekiwah, who has been called a poetic prodigy, began writing poems at the age of 10, he told me, because, "I fell in love with a girl and had to write a poem about it. It was the first feeling that poetry really pulled me into its world. It wasn't so much that I chose it, but that it chose me."
What struck me most about Ekiwah was that, for all of his success, including multiple book publications and the much-coveted respect and endorsement from poet Mary Oliver, he seemed just as interested in me and my work as a writer, and also what he can learn from coming to Bend.
