Bettye Fowler Kerns, Associate Director for Youth Services and Head of the Main Library of the Central Arkansas Library, greets a giraffe at the Little Rock Zoo.

On April 17, 2010, Little Rock Zoo unveiled its poetry installions, including this one at their elephant exhibit.

Mark Doty encounters an elephant at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

The five-city Language of Conservation program is a replication of Poets House’s successful Central Park Zoo initiative, which features this penguin exhibit among its poetry installations.

The Language of Conservation is a Poets House program designed to deepen public awareness of environmental issues through poetry. The program features poetry installations in zoos, which are complemented by poetry, nature and conservation resources and programs at public libraries. Working with five zoos and four public libraries in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Little Rock, Jacksonville, and Chicago, Poets-in-Residence collaborated with wildlife biologists and exhibit designers to curate exhibitions in zoos that feature poems celebrating the natural world and the connection between species. The installations debuted in 2010 on the following dates: Little Rock on April 17; Jacksonville on May 14; New Orleans on May 15; Brookfield on May 22; and Milwaukee on June 19.

The Poets-in-Residence are Mark Doty in New Orleans, Joseph Bruchac in Little Rock, Alison Hawthorne Deming in Jacksonville, Pattiann Rogers in Milwaukee, and Project Leader Sandra Alcosser in Brookfield, IL (just outside of Chicago). The Chicago-based American Library Association is collaborating with Poets House to share the outcomes of the project–which is designed to be replicated–with libraries throughout the United States and beyond. The Language of Conservation is made possible with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

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.

For a PowerPoint slideshow of poetry installations at our five participating zoos, click here.

Central Park Zoo Project Case Overview from Shaping Outcomes.

A story about the Language of Conservation, with a focus on Project Leader Sandra Alcosser, appears in 360, San Diego State University's blog.

The Poetry Foundation's blog, Harriet, visits the Brookfield Zoo.

The Language of Collaboration: Connecting Zoos, Libraries, and Poetry for Environmental Awareness from The American Library Association's Programming Librarian website.

Nature poetry fits right in at the Audubon Zoo, from The Times-Picayune (New Orleans).

The Reading Life (WWNO 89.9 FM, New Orleans) visits the Language of Conservation installation at the Audubon Zoo, and talks with Poet-in-Residence Mark Doty and Zoo Educator Brenda Walkenhorst.

The Campus Voice (Student newspaper of Florida State College at Jacksonville) covers Camille Dungy's September 22, 2011, reading at Jacksonville Public Library.