Back when I was studying for my MFA in the effervescently endless green of North Carolina’s Piedmont region, I was tasked with proposing a business that engaged with poetry in some way. A child of the “There’s an app for that” generation — and the exact opposite of what you might call a Shrewd Business Man™ — my idea was to create a location-based app that a user could turn to when in need of a poem to ground themselves in a particular place or landscape. 📲

What would it be like to read or listen to Matthew Arnold‘s 19th-century poem “Dover Beach” while standing near the Strait of Dover on its famous White Cliffs? 🌊

Or, in a more mundanely magical Mid-Missouri moment, to experience Mary Oliver‘s beloved poem “Wild Geese” while walking around the noisy gaggle that make their home at Stephens Lake? 🦢

A wonderfully wise poet-friend of mine often says each poem is only fully completed when it reaches its reader(s); I wonder how poems can be completed in the landscapes, places and moments we move through each day — and in turn, complete us in some small, necessary way. ✨ Continue reading “Poets Laureate We Love: Ada Limón 🌿”