Discover Poetry: A Garden of Verse

The Poetry Society of America has partnered with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to create sculptural poetry experiences in the Discovery Garden. These annual winter-season installations invite children, families, and caretakers to pay deeper attention to their surroundings. (Photo above: Peter Slattery/Brooklyn Botanic Garden).

2025 — Daniel Hall

Short Circuit

For no reason,
all at once,

a dove and a jay
swerve and land

at opposite ends
of the clothesline,

and the clothes—mine,
all mine!—commence

to dance with reckless
love and joy.
 

“Short Circuit” by Daniel Hall from Hermit with Landscape. Copyright © 1990 by Daniel Hall.
Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press. All rights reserved.

2024, Naomi Shihab Nye

Open House

I work as hard as I can
to have nothing to do.

Birds climb their rich ladder
of choruses.

They have tasted the top of the tree,
but they are not staying.

The whole sky says,
Your move.


“Open House” by Naomi Shihab Nye from Fuel. Copyright © 1998 by Naomi Shihab Nye.
Reprinted by permission of The Permission Company LLC, on behalf of BOA Editions.