Last updated: July 25, 2024
Place
You Are Here: Poetry in Parks at Jackson Visitor Center
NPS
Quick Facts
Location:
Outside Jackson Memorial Visitor Center Plaza (in Paradise)
Significance:
Art installation by 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón
Amenities
1 listed
Picnic Table
This picnic table outside Jackson Visitor Center is an art installation by the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. Limón selected A. R. Ammons' poem "Uppermost" for this poetry installation as part of her signature project "You Are Here: Poetry in Parks." The project includes additional installations at six other national parks.
A recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal in 1994, Ammons’ work focused on change both in nature and in life.
The top
grain on the peak
weighs next
to nothing and,
sustained
by a mountain,
has no burden,
but nearly
ready to float,
exposed
to summit wind,
it endures
the rigors of having
no further
figure to complete
and a
blank sky
to guide its dreaming
A. R. Ammons, “Uppermost” from The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons: Volume I 1955-1977, edited by Robert M. West. Copyright © 1975 by A. R. Ammons. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
A recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal in 1994, Ammons’ work focused on change both in nature and in life.
Uppermost
by A. R. AmmonsThe top
grain on the peak
weighs next
to nothing and,
sustained
by a mountain,
has no burden,
but nearly
ready to float,
exposed
to summit wind,
it endures
the rigors of having
no further
figure to complete
and a
blank sky
to guide its dreaming
A. R. Ammons, “Uppermost” from The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons: Volume I 1955-1977, edited by Robert M. West. Copyright © 1975 by A. R. Ammons. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
What Would You Write in Response to the Landscape Around You?
You Are Here, the signature project of the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, invites you to explore the relationship between language and the natural world through the words of poets and your own imagination.
Use #YouAreHerePoetry to share your thoughts!
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"Uppermost" by A. R. Ammons
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The 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón, reads the poem "Uppermost" by A. R. Ammons. Limón selected the poem for a poetry installation at Mount Rainier National Park as part of her signature project "You Are Here: Poetry in Parks."
- Credit / Author:
- Library of Congress
Photo Gallery
Poetry in Parks event at Mount...
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Poetry in Parks is the first partnership between the National Park Service, Library of Congress, Poetry Society of America, and the U.S. National Poet Laureate Ada Limón. The initiative is one half of Limón’s signature project titled, “You Are Here.” Mount Rainier National Park was one of seven parks to be selected to feature a site specific poem from a book that shares the same name. The poem, titled "Uppermost" by A. R. Ammons, was installed upon a picnic table and invites the public to observe and express in words how they would respond to the landscape around them. On June 19, 2024, Ada Limón and her brother unveiled the picnic table to the public.