Are you looking for a great way to spend some time every week with your teen or with your whole family around the dinner table this spring? Consider joining Seattle Public Library’s citywide book group, Seattle Reads, together or as a family.
This year, the group’s book selection is “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World,” edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. A poetry anthology published in association the Library of Congress, the book celebrates humanity’s deep connection with the natural world and the collective power of poetry. Reading of the book begins next month.
To create the anthology, Limón invited 50 American poets to observe and reflect on their local landscape. Featured poets include former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo; Pulitzer Prize winners Jericho Brown, Carl Phillips, and Diane Suess; PEN/Voelcker Award winners Victoria Chang and Rigoberto González; and Seattle-area poets Laura Da’ and Cedar Sigo.
Whether or not you or your teen or other family members think of yourselves as “poetry people,” all are likely to find something to love and something to talk about in this accessible collection. The book invites readers (or listeners) to consider their relationships with nature, according to Stesha Brandon, the Library’s Literature & Humanities program manager.
In the book’s introduction, Limón echoes that idea: “I hope this anthology serves as a reminder that there is more time to plant trees, to write poems, to not just be in wonder at this planet, but to offer something back to it, to offer something back together.”
Seattle Reads community programs will run from the end of March run through the end of May. The Seattle Public Library Foundation will host a kickoff event, featuring community partners engaged in this year’s programming, on Wednesday, March 26 at 6 pm at the Central Library. Limón will visit Seattle on May 16 and 17 to discuss the book at several community events. Check back for a full list of programs, dates and times, as well as a discussion guide at spl.org/SeattleReads.
As a second part of the project, titled “You Are Here: Poetry in the Parks,” poems have been installed on picnic tables at seven national parks around the country, including Mount Rainier National Park. On June 24, 2024, Limón traveled to the park to dedicate the poem “Uppermost,” by A.R. Ammons, which was installed outside Jackson Memorial Visitor Center in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park.
Find a copy of the book
Print, e-book and e-audiobook copies of “You Are Here” are available in the Library’s catalog. The Library has unlimited copies of the e-audiobook version of “You Are Here” through the Always Available collection, and is ordering more copies of the print and e-book formats. The Library will also have limited copies of uncatalogued copies of “You Are Here” available for informal borrowing in the coming weeks (meaning you can borrow them without checking them out and return them when you’re done).
Seattle Reads “You Are Here” is presented in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures Youth Poetry Fellowship, Creative Aging at the Frye, Hugo House, KUOW Book Club, La Sala, Memory Hub, Milkweed Editions, Open Books: A Poem Emporium, Poetry Northwest, Pongo Poetry Project, 4Culture Poetry in Public. It is made possible by The Seattle Public Library Foundation and The Wallace Foundation with additional media support from The Seattle Times.
About Seattle Reads
Founded in 1998, Seattle Reads is a citywide book group in which people are encouraged to read and discuss the same book. Originally called “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book,” Seattle Reads was the first “One Book, One City” program. It proved so popular that that concept has inspired similar programs across the United States and internationally.
Seattle Reads is designed to deepen engagement in literature through reading and discussion. Everyone is invited to participate by reading the featured book, joining a book discussion or attending programs with the featured writer.
Check out previous Seattle Reads selections
- 2024: “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
- 2023: “The Swimmers” by Julie Otsuka
- 2022: “The House of Broken Angels” by Luis Alberto Urrea
- 2021: “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett
- 2020: “There There” by Tommy Orange
- 2019: “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui
- 2018: “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi
- 2017: “The Turner House” by Angela Flournoy
- 2016: “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by Karen Joy Fowler
- 2015: “The Painter” by Peter Heller
- 2014: “For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey” by Richard Blanco
- 2013: “Stories for Boys” by Gregory Martin
- 2012: “The Submission” by Amy Waldman
- 2011: “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave
- 2010: “Secret Son” by Laila Lalami
- 2009: “My Jim” by Nancy Rawles
- 2008: “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears” by Dinaw Mengestu
- 2007: “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri
- 2006: “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi
- 2005: “When the Emperor Was Divine” by Julie Otsuka
- 2004: Seattle Reads Isabel Allende: The 2004 series featured seven titles from Allende’s body of work.
- 2003: “A Gesture Life” by Chang-rae Lee
- 2002: “Wild Life” by Molly Gloss
- 2001: “Fooling With Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft” by Bill Moyers
- 1999: “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest Gaines
- 1998: “The Sweet Hereafter” by Russell Banks
