Ada Limón

Published in association with the Library of Congress and edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, a singular collection of poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world by fifty of our most celebrated contemporary writers. For many years, “nature poetry” has evoked images of Romantic poets standing on mountain tops. But our poetic landscape has changed dramatically, and so has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, this book challenges what we think we know about “nature poetry,” illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing. You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation’s most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more. Each poem engages with its author’s local landscape—be it the breathtaking variety of flora in a national park, or a lone tree flowering persistently by a bus stop—offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States. Joyful and provocative, wondrous and urgent, this singular collection of poems offers a lyrical reimagining of what “nature” and “poetry” are today, inviting readers to experience both anew.

Poetry in the Natural World

taylor miles hopkins

 panic's thousand fingers braided through

 If I don't look down, or walk away. Step

and hold my tongue differently to string together

 the consonants of my language. To say wolf, I have to 

in the asphalt that draws them but I know 

it's the way the stars ambush their loneliness 

with their communities of fire, the waning 

moon glowing like a hypothesis, the snakes 

Night Shift in the Home for Convalesents by Carolyn Forché

Everything at once, she had said. All that you 

You Are Here quotes

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