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Wick Poetry Center Publications

The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders

Originally envisioned as a companion to the first U.S. National Nature Assessment and now to the work of , The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders gathers 210 voices from the arts, ecology, academia, and Indigenous communities from North America giving witness to how nature shapes our lives and how we can shape the future.

Edited by Luisa A. Igloria, Aileen Cassinetto, and David Hassler, the anthology features poems from some of the country’s best-known poets, including Jane Hirshfield, Kimberly Blaeser, Diane Ackerman, Camille Dungy, Naomi Shihab Nye, Arthur Sze, and many more.

The Nature of Our Times is a shared initiative, bringing together the joint efforts of Paloma Press, , , and Wick Poetry Center at 51����, and is made possible with grant support from the , the and Arts Commission, and the Woodward Foundation. This anthology serves as a companion to the first national assessment of U.S. lands, waters, and wildlife.

Tend the Flame

This beautiful commemorative book captures sparks from “Tend the Flame,” a community poem created to celebrate the National Writing Project’s 50th anniversary. This project was a collaboration between NWP and the Wick Poetry Center at 51����. Tend the Flame features a foreword by Naomi Shihab Nye and was scripted by David Hassler.

The “Tend the Flame” model poem was a compilation of lines written by National Writing Project teachers who participated in a writing workshop at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention on November 20, 2022, in Anaheim, California. Hundreds of teachers have submitted poems since, allowing themselves to be vulnerable, sharing both their joy and grief, and speaking with open hearts about their passion for writing and teaching.

Speak a Powerful Magic

This beautiful and moving book, featuring a representative collection of Traveling Stanzas poetry illustrations, celebrates the 10th anniversary of this award-winning community arts project. Launched in 2009 as a collaboration between 51����’s Wick Poetry Center and Professor Valora Renicker’s visual communication design students, Traveling Stanzas pairs poems with striking graphic designs. The resulting images, in both print and digital forms, have been featured in galleries, community spaces, interactive media, and on regional and national mass transit.

"Speak a Powerful Magic" features poems by school children, immigrants and refugees, patients and caregivers, and veterans, alongside the work of well-known contemporary American poets, and it demonstrates that poetry is truly of the people. We turn to poetry to give voice to what is troubling us, to  honor what we love, to make sense of our lives, to remember our past, and to commemorate what we’ve lost. Here, it becomes clear that poetry, especially when coupled with the visual arts, has the potential to broaden our understanding and bring people together in ways that more traditional communications simply cannot.

I Hear the World Sing Sento cantare il mondo

When school children from Kent, Ohio, and Florence, Italy, were invited to express their thoughts about “Where I’m From” in poetry, the connections that emerged between these students from different continents were remarkable. Their responses to this prompt ― “lo vengo da” in Italian ― demonstrate the underlying importance of home, families, the natural world and the creative identities that children harbor within themselves.

The 40 poems in "I Hear the World Sing," printed in both English and Italian, presents these poems in three sections ― “The Chirp of Little Birds,” “Witness the River” and “I Write to Grow a World" ― which explore and celebrate the commonalities between us. Anyone can be a poet, no matter the language one speaks or writes. And by presenting each poem in two languages, this collection emphasizes how successfully poetry transcends both physical and linguistic boundaries, no matter the age of the poet.

Originally composed in workshops facilitated by the Wick Poetry Center’s Traveling Stanzas project and translated by students in 51����’s Italian translation program, "I Hear the World Sing" is an invitation for students of poetry, of Italian, and readers of any age to reflect on language and how it shapes our lives.

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