As part of this year’s Climate Preparedness Week programming, Forbes Library welcomes Echoes of Nature: Hampshire County, a unique interdisciplinary performance by singer-songwriter Jess Martin and poet Kim Hoff.
Echoes of Nature combines live music, poetry, and projected visuals to explore themes of place, memory, and environmental care. Rooted in the landscapes of Western Massachusetts, the performance celebrates local ecologies while reflecting on identity, belonging, and community action in the face of climate change.
This special event aligns with the 2025 Climate Prep Week theme: Caring for the Earth, Yourself, and Your Community. Through storytelling and song, the artists invite audiences to reflect on their relationship to land and each other — offering a space of shared connection and creative resilience.
About the performers: Jess Martin is a queer singer-songwriter whose raw, lyrical style blends punk blues with folk traditions. Kim Hoff is a poet, essayist, and environmental educator whose work highlights the intersections of ecology and identity. Together, their collaboration amplifies the voices of place and people through an innovative, immersive performance format.
The program is funded in part by grants from the Amherst, Belchertown, Easthampton, and Williamsburg Cultural Councils — local agencies supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Additional funding is provided by Forbes Library.
This event is organized as part of Climate Preparedness Week 2025, in collaboration with the Pioneer Valley Library Collaborative.
This year's theme is Caring for the Earth, Yourself, and your Community. The climate crisis is not isolated to the environment, the physical and emotional impacts can leave lasting impacts on you and your community. The goal of this year’s theme is to address the ways in which providing care can help support and prepare your community and the environment for the future.
September is National Preparedness Month, and in connection with that, Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) hosts Climate Prep Week during the last week of September. CPW is a week of learning, service, and actions to better prepare our communities for extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change. This is also an opportunity for community-oriented groups to host events that create space to think about how climate change impacts their community in a variety of ways.
You may also like the following events from Jess Martin:
- Next month, 6th September, 07:00 pm, Easthampton's Art Walk performance of Echoes of Nature in Easthampton
- Next month, 11th September, 07:00 pm, Song Share Sessions for Nonbinary, Trans & Women Singer Songwriters in Florence
- Next month, 13th September, 04:00 pm, Belchertown! Shadow, Sound, Spectacle: Literary Monsters in Belchertown
Also check out other
Music events in Northampton,
Arts events in Northampton,
Literary Art events in Northampton.