Anya Lorenzo/courtesy MacArthur Foundation
Ada Limón and some plants.
Ada Limón
A spring’s worth of poetry events jump-started by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters culminates on May 23 with a reading by the poet laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, at The Playhouse in the Overture Center for the Arts, and discussion with the former poet laureate of Wisconsin, Kimberly Blaeser.
The poetry initiative, dubbed “Bloom,” has been a way to “celebrate poetry around the state,” says Erika Monroe-Kane, executive director of the Academy. While poetry can sometimes seem far from everyday concerns, Monroe-Kane says that all forms of letters, including poetry, can be used “to connect people to each other, and understand the state differently.”
This spring’s events have attempted to augment those connections by bringing people together physically — and virtually — to encounter poetry. People thus discover “common ground,” says Monroe-Kane, breaking down the walls sometimes perceived between, for instance, urban and rural populations. The more people interact, suggests Monroe-Kane, “the less polarized they become.”
To that end, Limón’s presentation, entitled “Poetry and the Natural World,” will be available for viewing online as well as in person. The Academy is also facilitating watch parties throughout the state, including public sessions hosted by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and Northland College in Ashland, the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild in Eau Claire, the Mead Library in Sheboygan, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and the Verona Library in Verona, and the Driftless Writing Center in Viroqua. Private watch parties will be taking place at the Capitol Lakes senior living community in Madison and The Clearing folk school in Ellison Bay.
Limón became poet laureate of the United States in July 2022, succeeding Joy Harjo. She’s pursuing a number of initiatives during her tenure, including editing an anthology of nature poems published last month called You Are Here: Poetry and the Natural World, featuring 50 previously unpublished poems by contemporary American poets engaging with the landscapes in which they live. “This anthology hopes to reimagine what ‘nature poetry’ is during this urgent moment on our planet,” Limón writes in the book.
Limón’s own most recent collection, The Hurting Kind (Milkweed, 2022) is alive with poems firmly connected to the natural world but without any sense of complacency. In the volume’s concluding poem, “The End of Poetry,” Limón writes “enough of…how a certain light does a certain thing” but instead asks an imagined reader to “touch me. ” That need for interconnectedness runs throughout the volume. Her keen observation is not inert but active and questioning — and also practical: “I like to call things what they are,” she declares in the prose poem “Calling Things What They Are”: “Brown bird. Gray bird. Black bird. Blah blah blah bird.” (And she is seldom without her sense of humor.)
Following Limón’s appearance in Madison, she will embark on a tour of some of the nation’s national parks, including Cape Cod National Seashore, Mount Rainier National Park, Redwood national and state parks, Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, unveiling new poetry installations on park picnic tables. In addition, people are invited to write their own poems about the natural landscape and post their work on social media with the hashtag #YouAreHerePoetry.
Tickets are still available to see the event live at the Overture Center, as well as registration for the link for the virtual stream or to join (or host) a watch party.
