U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Date:
June 26, 2024

GATLINBURG, Tenn.-The beauty of Great Smoky Mountains National Park has inspired artists for nearly 100 years. Ada Limón, the country's 24th Poet Laureate, will celebrate that legacy at a special event at Oconaluftee Visitor Center on Saturday, July 20.
Seven national parks, including Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 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.
The Smokies will be the fifth stop of Limon's "Poetry in Parks" tour. She has already visited Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, and Redwood National and State Parks in California. She will also visit Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, Everglades National Park in Florida and Saguaro National Park in Arizona. For her Smokies visit, Limón will unveil a picnic table with an overlay featuring Lucille Clifton's poem "the earth is a living thing" at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. Clifton's work emphasizes endurance and strength through adversity, focusing particularly on African-American experience and family life.
On July 20 at 11 a.m., the public is invited to the picnic table unveiling at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, followed by a book signing by the Poet Laureate, the opportunity to picnic (bring your own), and an assortment of hands-on, family-friendly activities. After the event, the picnic table will be relocated to the Appalachian Highland Science Learning Center, where it will inspire the scientists and K-12 students who use the facility at Purchase Knob for years to come.

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