We are so excited to share this year’s selection for Seattle Reads, the Library’s citywide book group: Edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World,” celebrates our deep connection with the natural world and the collective power of poetry.
For the book, Limón invited 50 American poets to observe and reflect on their local landscape. Featured poets include former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo; Pulitzer Prize winners Jericho Brown, Carl Phillips, and Diane Suess; PEN/Voelcker Award winners Victoria Chang and Rigoberto González; and Seattle-area poets Laura Da’ and Cedar Sigo.
In a Seattle Times article published on the selection, Literature and Humanities program manager Stesha Brandon said that she hopes the book will “inspire conversations in communities across the city.” She noted that “there are poems about grief and the climate crisis. Some of them are about feeling connected to something bigger than ourselves. Some of them are about community … It offers different entry points to the conversation.”
Ada Limón is visiting Seattle in May (and other program news)
In addition to encouraging Seattle readers to come together to read the same book, Seattle Reads, which started in 1998, brings the city together through community programs that further explore and celebrate each year’s title selection.
Seattle Reads programs will run from the end of March run through the end of May. Mark these on your calendar now: The Seattle Public Library Foundation will host a kickoff event, featuring community partners engaged in this year’s programming, on Wednesday, March 26 at 6 pm at the Central Library. And Limón will visit Seattle on May 16 and 17 to discuss the book at several community events.
Check back for a full list of programs, dates and times, as well as a discussion guide at www.spl.org/SeattleReads.
Find a copy of “You Are Here”
Print, e-book and e-audiobook copies of “You Are Here” are available in the Library’s catalog. The Library has unlimited copies of the e-audiobook version of “You Are Here” through the Always Available collection, and is ordering more copies of the print and e-book formats. The Library will also have limited copies of uncatalogued copies of “You Are Here” available for informal borrowing in the coming weeks (meaning you can borrow them without checking them out and return them when you’re done).
Seattle Reads “You Are Here” is presented in partnership with Creative Aging at the Frye, Hugo House, KUOW Book Club, La Sala, Memory Hub, Milkweed Editions, Open Books: A Poem Emporium, Poetry Northwest, Pongo Poetry Project, 4Culture Poetry in Public, Seattle Arts & Lectures Youth Poetry Fellowship. It is made possible by The Seattle Public Library Foundation and The Wallace Foundation with additional media support from The Seattle Times.
“I hope this anthology serves as a reminder that there is more time to plant trees, to write poems, to not just be in wonder at this planet, but to offer something back to it, to offer something back together,” wrote Limón in the introduction to “You Are Here.”
As a second part of the project, titled “You Are Here: Poetry in the Parks,” poems were installed on picnic tables at seven national parks around the country, including Mount Rainier National Park. On June 24, 2024, Limón traveled to the park to dedicate the poem “Uppermost,” by A.R. Ammons, which was installed outside Jackson Memorial Visitor Center in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park.
About Seattle Reads
Founded in 1998, Seattle Reads is a citywide book group in which people are encouraged to read and discuss the same book. Originally called “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book,” Seattle Reads was the first “One Book, One City” program. It proved so popular that that concept has inspired similar programs across the United States and internationally.
Find out more about Ada Limón, “You Are Here,” and previous Seattle Reads titles at www.spl.org/SeattleReads.
– Elisa M., Communications
Leave a Comment