U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón to Host Nationwide Art Project During Visit to Redwood National and State Parks

Photo Courtesy Library of Congress

Press release from Redwood National and State Parks:

The beauty of the coastal redwoods has inspired artists for centuries. Ada Limón, the country’s 24th Poet Laureate, will celebrate that legacy at a special event in the park on Sunday, June 23rd.

Seven national parks, including Redwood National and State Parks, were selected by Limón to be part of her signature project “You are Here: Poetry in Parks.” The initiative is a partnership between the National Park Service, Library of Congress, and the Poetry Society of America that features site-specific poetry installations in the parks. In each park, a picnic table transformed into a work of public art will be unveiled. Each table is inscribed with a historic American poem that relates to the park in a meaningful way.

“I want to champion the ways reading and writing poetry can situate us in the natural world. Never has it been more urgent to feel a sense of reciprocity with our environment, and poetry’s alchemical mix of attention, silence, and rhythm gives us a reciprocal way of experiencing nature—of communing with the natural world through breath and presence,” said Limón.

Redwood National and State Parks is the lone California stop on Limon’s “Poetry in Parks” tour. Over the summer, she will also visit Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, Everglades National Park in Florida, and Saguaro National Park in Arizona. In every park, Limón will celebrate the installation of a public art picnic table and participate in community outreach events that nurture connections with the natural world.

For the Redwood visit, Limón will unveil a picnic table with an overlay featuring Francisco X. Alarcón’s poem “Never Alone” at the Crescent Beach picnic area. Alarcón was a prolific and award-winning writer and poet born in California and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico.

On June 23rd at 3 p.m., the public is invited to the unveiling ceremony at Crescent Beach.