Today we hear from Lisa Fuller, director of community engagement at Worthington Libraries in Worthington, Ohio, about a wonderful public art project she developed– a poetry path! Combining green space, libraries, and the arts, it hits all my favorite things. Enjoy! ~Erinn
Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Tell us a little bit about the Poetry Path. How did this idea get started?
Lisa Fuller (LF): The Worthington Libraries’ Poetry Path is an outdoor learning environment featuring the work of six American poets on permanent display at the system’s Northwest Library location. The goal of the project was to reclaim an area of the library property that was unattractive and underutilized. Our Green Team(a staff-led group dedicated to educating the community about environmental issues and reducing the library’s environmental impact) wanted to transform the space, which was essentially grass and a few sad shrubs, to serve as an outdoor learning space and as a home to birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife. We’d already had some success with transforming smaller areas of library property, but this was our first large-scale initiative, requiring work with a landscaper, funding efforts, and a dedicated volunteer base to help us with planting and maintenance.
In 2013, the library’s Green Team worked with the community—holding focus groups and meeting with local garden clubs—to develop plans to convert an underutilized lawn space at its Northwest Library location to an outdoor learning environment. With funding from Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation Project, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, and Target, a garden was installed by staff and community volunteers in fall 2014. The poetry signs were installed in the garden in early 2015. Fully accessible to persons with disabilities, the poetry path features a variety of native Ohio plants, gravel pathways, a dry creekbed with local pebbles and boulders, a bird habitat area and safe “pondless” water features. Several plant beds also absorb stormwater runoff, which reduces flooding of the area following heavy rainfall.
LAIP: Was there any particular inspiration that led you to include poetry as an arts component to the library’s reclaim / green space effort?
LF: The poetry initiative resulted from a 2014 visit I made to Alaska. While there, I learned about Poems in Place, a cooperative project of Alaska State Parks and the Alaska Center for the Book, to place poems written by Alaskans in each of the regions of Alaska’s State Park system.
We had been looking for a way to make our garden different and to give people an additional reason to visit and explore.
We had been looking for a way to make our garden different and to give people an additional reason to visit and explore. Adding poems on permanent signage throughout the garden was a perfect fit and brought a different dimension to the space, showing how nature influences art. The poems make the Path both a literary and nature destination.
LAIP: Which poems are part of the path? How did you select them?
LF: Three of the six poets included on the Poetry Path are Ohioans: James Wright, David Baker and Maggie Smith. The others are David Romtvedt, Karen Weyant and Brod Bagert. I write and read poetry and began my career working for an independent publisher of poetry and literary fiction, so I selected all of the poems. Specifically, I looked for accessible, thought-provoking poems that featured nature and animals as subject or backdrop. They highlight our relationship with the natural world and invite reflection and contemplation in a beautiful outdoor space.
Links to the poems:
- A Blessing by James Wright
- Yellowjackets by Karen Weyant
- Neighbors in October by David Baker
- Caterpillars by Brod Bagert
- Sunday Morning Early by David Romtvedt
- Wren Songs by Maggie Smith
LAIP: How did you open the garden to the public once it was finished?
We opened the garden during National Library Week in 2015 at our annual community breakfast. Nearly 200 people attended the event. All of the poets (except James Wright, who passed away) were invited to read their work, and Karen Weyant was able to attend to read her poem, Yellowjackets.
LAIP: How does the library use the space? How do patrons?
LF: The space has been heavily used this summer as an outdoor classroom surrounding our annual program where we raise and release monarch butterflies. The public has been invited to several release events and the garden is now home to butterflies, birds and many, many honeybees. On August 1, the space was used as learning environment for a Project Wild workshop presented by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
The space has been heavily used this summer as an outdoor classroom surrounding our annual program where we raise and release monarch butterflies.
People stroll through the garden on a continual basis when visiting Northwest Library. Kids play in the water features. People watch and photograph the wildlife. We’ve also used the space to further our community outreach and programming surrounding green initiatives and education. Our patrons love watching the garden grow and move through the seasons, and the local photography club sometimes stays after their meetings to take photos in the garden.
LAIP: Do you have any plans to expand the Poetry Path?
LF: Current plans for expansion include the creation of an earthen barrier to block some noise from the road. We also have plans to add natural seating.
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