As the school year ends and summer heat looms, presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco is reminded of the natural and historical places that families flock to in the summer months.
Thus inspired, Blanco shared two poems on Boston Public Radio on Wednesday that document National Park Service sites. These poems are part of a 2016 collection from the Academy of American Poets, which commissioned 50 poets to write about sites in their respective states for the National Park Service's centennial. The project was funded by a grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service to support art projects that engage people with the National Parks system.
The first poem Blanco shared highlights the jewel of his home state of Florida. “The Everglades” is written by Campbell McGrath, who was Blanco’s graduate school mentor at Florida International University.
“He’s like that little voice in my head, that editorial voice, that’s still with me,” Blanco said of McGrath.
The poem itself is “very meditative,” said Blanco, almost like the flowing river of grass that is the Everglades.
The Everglades
Campbell McGrath
Green and blue and white, it is a flag
for Florida stitched by hungry ibises.
It is a paradise of flocks, a cornucopia
of wind and grass and dark, slow waters.
Turtles bask in the last tatters of afternoon,
frogs perfect their symphony at dusk—
in its solitude we remember ourselves,
dimly, as creatures of mud and starlight.
Clouds and savannahs and horizons,
its emptiness is an antidote, its ink
illuminates the manuscript of the heart.
It is not ours though it is ours
to destroy or preserve, this the kingdom
of otter, kingfisher, alligator, heron.
If the sacred is a river within us, let it flow
like this, serene and magnificent, forever.
Copyright © 2016 by Campbell McGrath. This poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant.
In a nod to Boston, Blanco also shared the poem “Old South Meeting House” by January Gill O’Neil.
The Old South Meeting House, located in Boston’ Back Bay neighborhood, is a Boston National Historical Park partner site operated by the nonprofit Revolutionary Spaces.
Boston’s first published Black poet, Phillis Wheatley, was a member of the meeting house, which served as a church and a meeting place for American Revolutionaries.
Old South Meeting House
January Gill O'Neil
We draw breath from brick
step on stones, weather-worn,
cobbled and carved
with the story of this church,
his meeting house,
where Ben Franklin was baptized
and Phillis Wheatley prayed—a mouth-house
where colonists gathered
to plot against the crown.
This structure, with elegant curves
and round-topped windows, was the heart
of Boston, the body of the people,
survived occupation for preservation,
foregoing decoration
for conversation.
Let us gather in the box pews
once numbered and rented
by generations of families
held together like ribs
in the body politic. Let us gaze upon
the upper galleries to the free seats
where the poor and the town slaves
listened and waited and pondered
and prayed
for revolution.
Let us testify to the plight
of the well-meaning at the pulpit
with its sounding board high above,
congregations raising heads and hands to the sky.
We, the people—the tourists
and townies—one nation under
this vaulted roof, exalted voices
speaking poetry out loud,
in praise and dissent.
We draw breath from brick. Ignite the fire in us.
Speak to us:
the language is hope.
Copyright © 2016 by January Gill O'Neil. This poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant.
