Central Park, the lungs of New York City,
exists because of a poet, William Cullen Bryant.
He was a very influential poet.
And it is created as a poem.
It was designed to be experienced as a poem
by Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed it.
It's perfect that we have Auden here
at this place, where we're overlooking
not only the zoo, and down below, the snow monkeys,
but when you look up this way, you're surrounded by the city.
A small grove massacred to the last ash, an oak
with heart rot, giveaway the show.
This great society is going smash.
They cannot fool us with how fast they go,
how much they cost each other and the gods.
A culture is no better than its woods.
We think people don't like poetry.
People seem thrilled to find poetry.
It seems to really give them the respite that they want.
I get calls from people, like the environmental minister
from Iceland, who wants to know more about this poem,
who has no idea who Auden is, who does not
know that Auden wrote a great deal,
including letters from Iceland, and considered
Iceland his iconic landscape.
We know that all art is conversation.
That's what we're doing this for.
It's this truing of the inner with the outer.
But still, it's really exciting when
people call you from the other side of the world,
or call you from the UN, to find out, who is this guy.
I was saying to Cybele and Wendy today,
my most exciting moment is--
there's a wonderful, really fine poet
who lives below me at the bottom of the hill.
And she lives in a sheepherder's wagon.
And her partner is a farrier.
And they have everything that's just--
it's built to the size to go down the highway in case
they have to move.
It's sort of like a gypsy operation.
And she was excited about what I was doing.
But she gave me a call one day, and she said,
I just got a call from my friend in New York.
And her son is--
this friend's son is autistic, and rarely says anything
to his mother.
And the mother took the son to this installation,
and he couldn't stop pulling on her, saying,
it's a celebration, Mommy.
It's a celebration.
And I said, yes.
He got it perfectly.
This is exactly, exactly what it was about.
Scientists were so excited by the poems
that we're now putting--
we went on from there to put poems in five boroughs.
I became NEA's first conservation poet
to work with Wildlife Conservation
Society in the other boroughs, expanding the readership
from one million, from all over the world, to four million.
And then we had a little break, and our incredible grant
writer, John Frazier, went out and wrote another grant
to take what we're doing, and expand it to five cities.
I was able to have my dream list of poets
and invite Lucy Tapahonso from here,
and invite Alison Hawthorne Deming from here,
W.S. Merwin, Galway Kinnell, Jane Hirshfield.
Many, many wonderful poets.
And then go down that list and say,
who would be the ideal person.
It was almost like a dating service.
You don't know this, Alison.
But I called-- well, because I've been through this--
I called the scientists, and I would talk with the scientists
and get an idea of their temperament,
and think, OK, who would go really well.
Of course, the zoo director left before Alison
arrived in Jacksonville.
She has a new person she's just charmed.
But ask Alison Hawthorne Deming and Mark Doty.
Mark is in New Orleans, Pattiann Rogers is in Milwaukee,
Joe Bruchac is in Little Rock, and Alison is in Jacksonville.
We're expanding this, and it's becoming a little bit
more complex, in that now--
oh, and I'm at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago,
and I'm there because the scientist
I worked with in New York has now moved to Brookfield.
But the way it's become more complex--
and it's a great thing for all the writers involved--
is that we're partnering with libraries,
and we're partnering with the American Library Association.
All of the advisors get their books in the libraries.
And we have programming, not only at the zoological center,
but at the libraries as well.
And this is a million-dollar grant
that's now going on for-- it will be a three-year grant.
We're in the second year of three years.
And now we're talking about taking on world peace.
What's next for poetry?
They have very strict rules.