Bettye Fowler Kerns, Associate Director for Youth Services and Head of the Main Library of the Central Arkansas Library, greets a giraffe at the Little Rock Zoo.

On April 17, Little Rock Zoo unveiled its poetry installions, including this one at their elephant exhibit.

Mark Doty encounters an elephant at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

Alison Hawthorne Deming communes with a gorilla at the Jacksonville Zoo.

The five-city Language of Conservation program is a replication of Poets House’s successful Central Park Zoo initiative, which features this penguin exhibit among its poetry installations.

The Language of Conservation is a Poets House program that is designed to deepen public awareness of environmental issues through poetry. The program features poetry installations in zoos, which are complemented by poetry, nature and conservation resources and programs at public libraries. Working with five zoos and four public libraries in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Little Rock, Jacksonville, and Chicago, Poets-in-Residence collaborate with wildlife biologists and exhibit designers to curate exhibitions in zoos that feature poems celebrating the natural world and the connection between species. The installations will debut on the following dates: Little Rock on April 17; Jacksonville on May 14; New Orleans on May 15; Brookfield on May 22; and Milwaukee on June 19.

The Poets-in-Residence are Mark Doty in New Orleans, Joseph Bruchac in Little Rock, Alison Hawthorne Deming in Jacksonville, Pattiann Rogers in Milwaukee, and Project Leader Sandra Alcosser in Brookfield, IL (just outside of Chicago). The Chicago-based American Library Association is collaborating with Poets House to share the outcome of the project—which is designed to be replicated—with libraries throughout the United States and beyond. The Language of Conservation is made possible with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

This partnership between poetry and science began as a successful program developed by Poets House and the Wildlife Conservation Society that incorporated poetry into wildlife exhibits at the Central Park Zoo in New York City. Through the Central Park Zoo project, Wildlife Conservation Society researchers discovered that the use of poetry installations made zoo visitors dramatically more aware of the impact humans have on ecosystems.

A story about the Language of Conservation, with a focus on Project Leader Sandra Alcosser, appears in 360, San Diego State University's blog.