Reading and writing poetry can situate us in the natural world.
Ada’s Signature Project as the U.S. Poet Laureate
“You Are Here” will launch during National Poetry Month in April and will continue throughout the year with installations of poetry as public art in national parks across the country. “You Are Here” is comprised of two major initiatives: a new anthology of nature poems and a series of visits to national parks, as well as a call for the public to participate. Please learn more below, and visit our friends at The Library of Congress.
WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE IN RESPONSE TO THE LANDSCAPE AROUND YOU? #youareherepoetry
We encourage everyone, everywhere — poets and non-poets to join us in our efforts to celebrate poetry & the natural world. We hope many will feel moved to write their own responses to the You Are Here prompt. It's simple: What would you write in response to the landscape around you? People can share their responses on social media if they choose, using the hashtag #YouAreHerePoetry.
POETRY IN THE PARKS
Poetry in Parks is an initiative to install poetry on picnic tables in seven national parks. As public works of art, the picnic tables will each feature a historic American poem selected by Limón to encourage visitors to pay deeper attention to their surroundings. Limón will travel to each of the parks in the summer and fall of 2024 to unveil the new installations. Additional information (including a map of locations!) is available at the National Parks Service, and the dates of parks visits follow.
Join Us at the National Parks!
All links to the poems go to our partner’s website at the Poetry Society of America. We encourage you to spend time reading & listening to the poems there.
December 3: Saguaro National Park, AZ
Featured Poem: “Na:nko Ma:s Cewagĭ / Cloud Song” by Ofelia ZepedaJanuary 31: Everglades National Park, FL
Featured Poem: “Ecology” by June Jordan
POETRY IN THE NATURAL WORLD
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World is a singular collection of poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world—to be published by Milkweed in association with the Library of Congress in April of 2024.
“With poems written for vast and inspiring vistas to poems acknowledging the green spaces that flourish even in the most urban of settings, this anthology hopes to reimagine what ‘nature poetry’ is during this urgent moment on our planet.” — Ada Limón
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World is a singular collection of poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world—to be published by Milkweed in association with the Library of Congress in April of 2024. It will feature fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation’s most accomplished poets: Poet Laureate Joy Harjo; Pulitzer Prize winners Jericho Brown, Diane Seuss, and Carl Phillips; National Book Award finalist Carolyn Forché; PEN/Voelcker Award winners Victoria Chang and Rigoberto González; New York Times bestseller Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize winner Paul Tran; Whiting Award winner Paul Guest; and many more. Learn more about the anthology, including a listing of all featured poets at Milkweed Editions.
REVIEWS
“You Are Here slices through the noise and confusion of the day, offering instead a reminder of the healing power of careful attention.” — Shelf Awareness - starred review
“Who are we, the poets ask, as individuals and as a species? How have our surroundings shaped our pasts and our presents, and what can they tell us about how to exist in the future? The Earth here is rather like a supporting character—a foil—who can surprise us, devastate us, and bring us back to ourselves.” — You Are Here featured in The Atlantic’s Summer Reading Guide
“Whoever you are, you will find yourself and your own world in the expansiveness of this collection. Even in the specificity of each poet’s own inimitable experience, you will find your own voice and your own perceiving self, for the natural world includes us and enfolds us all.” — “How to Breathe With the Trees,” New York Times Opinion
"Written with intimacy and timeless beauty, this is an ode to how our planet is changing and how we relate to the land we live on." — Hip Latina - 15 Poetry Collections by Latina Writers Coming Out in 2024
"A wondrous artist herself, Limón is currently poet laureate of the United States, and this anthology is part of her signature project, “You Are Here,” which will also feature poetry as public art in seven national parks. Released in conjunction with the Library of Congress, the collection features 50 previously unpublished poems by luminaries including Jericho Brown, Joy Harjo, Carl Phillips and Diane Seuss, each focusing on a piece of regional landscape." — L.A. Times 10 books to add to your reading list in April
"Ada Limón commissioned some of the finest poets of our era to write to perhaps the most pressing issue of our time, in an anthology that is uniformly intimate, if diverse in subject matter.... This collection will speak to those who love contemporary poetry and those who don’t yet realize they do, as well as all who care about our natural world, and our place within it.... This collection is superbly designed for multiple audiences: nature lovers, poetry mavens, casual readers, or even as a generative teaching tool." — Library Journal - National Poetry Month recommendations
"This beautifully curated anthology of 50 previously unpublished poems challenges preconceptions about “nature poetry” as it meditates on humanity’s relationship to the planet.... This collection stands apart for the strength of its entries and the breadth of its superb meditations on a pressing theme." — Publisher’s Weekly
"Featuring 50 poems, this collection, edited by U.S. poet laureate Limón, highlights the ways the natural world is changing, with emphasis on locality and the authors’ relationships to their specific landscapes and communities." — Alta — 14 New Books for April
"Limón, the U.S. poet laureate, edited a collection of poetry by authors in conversation with the natural world. The collection appears in April. It’s a lovely book to take with you to read at the end of your next hike." — L.A. Times Books Newsletter, “Worried about climate change? Read these women authors”
"Poetry in a list of science books? Why not? Limón, the 24th Poet Laureate of the U.S., has edited an anthology of all-new nature poems from writers like Joy Harjo, Erika Meitner, and Jericho Brown, among others. Whatever you think “nature poetry” is, you might be surprised by this collection. Each poet writes about their local landscape in new and sometimes unexpected ways, showcasing a diversity of methods with which to interact with the natural world. It’s a slim but powerful volume of poetry that demands you slow down, stop, and immerse yourself in the natural world, if even just for a few minutes." — Book Riot - 8 Science Books to Look For in Early 2024
"Lush with lyricism and striking imagery, these poems by Jericho Brown, Diane Seuss, and others contemplate seascapes, backyards, national borders, and built environments where life sings beneath the surface." — Poets & Writers
"Nature is the unifying theme of this poetry anthology edited by current U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón, who was born and raised in Sonoma County. Each featured poet, including Joy Harjo, Paul Tran, Rigoberto González and more, is invited to tangle with their local landscape to produce previously unpublished work." — San Francisco Chronicle - Bay Area books: 22 new works to energize your spring reading
A Poem in Space
The Library of Congress and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón have embarked on a mission with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send a poem to space! The poem, written by Ada and dedicated to the Europa Clipper mission, will be engraved on the spacecraft.
Learn more at the Library of Congress
In The End, Everything Gives
Poem for Andy Goldworthy’s “Roof”
In September of 2023, Limón participated in the John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art and Community Celebration at the National Gallery of Art. This symposium brought poets from across the nation together to premiere original poetry inspired by works in the Gallery’s collection, and it opened with a keynote address by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón—who wrote a poem, “In the End, Everything Gives” in response to Andy Goldsworthy’s sculpture “Roof.”
Love ends. But what if it doesn’t?
THE HURTING KIND
A new collection OF POEMS BY Ada Limón.
SHELTER: A LOVE LETTER TO TREES
Ada Limón has kept a catalog of cherished trees that have grounded and inspired her throughout her life—trees that have marked time and place and have expanded meaning about what it is to be alive on this planet. Here, in a piece that is equal parts a tribute to nature’s power and mystery, boldly confessional memoir, and honest reckoning with our world’s beauty and its many upheavals, she takes the reader on a tour tree by tree, from California and New York City to Cape Cod and Kentucky.
Available from Scribd as both an ebook and audiobook narrated by the author.
“Beautiful personal essays told in vignettes,” Washington Independent Review of Books