Aside from majestic North American animals and beautiful exhibits, Great Bear Wilderness also embraces the Language of Conservation, an initiative aimed at deepening conservation awareness through poetry.
Throughout the footprint of the Great Bear Wilderness, you’ll encounter 38 artistically displayed poems, each offering a unique and stirring perspective on the natural world. Contemplate and experience the words of Sylvia Plath, Henry David Thoreau, Pablo Neruda, and many, many more.
You can also immerse yourself in similar poetry installations at two libraries – the Brookfield Public Library and Riverside Public Library. Stop by and read their artistically displayed poems and check out a book of nature-themed poetry while you’re there.
With the support of a $1 million National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Poets House (national literary center and poetry library headquartered in New York City) has partnered with five zoos to create approximately 200 unique poetry installations in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Little Rock, Jacksonville, and Chicago. The selected zoos have seamlessly woven poems into the habitats of animals such as polar bears, snakes and flamingos to inspire millions of zoo visitors to become better stewards of the environment.
The Poets-in-Residence are Sandra Alcosser (Brookfield, outside of Chicago), Joseph Bruchac (Little Rock), Alison Hawthorne Deming (Jacksonville, FL), Mark Doty (New Orleans), and Pattiann Rogers (Milwaukee). Under the guidance of Poets House, public libraries are providing literary resources and programs to enhance the installations and expand the knowledge, urgency, and spirit of conservation.
This partnership between poetry and science began as a successful program developed by Poets House and the Wildlife Conservation Society that incorporated poetry into wildlife exhibits at the Central Park Zoo in New York City. Through the Central Park Zoo project, Wildlife Conservation Society researchers discovered that the use of poetry installations made zoo visitors dramatically more aware of the impact humans have on ecosystems.