As the school year ends and summer heat looms, presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco is reminded of the natural and historical places that families flock to in the summer months.

Thus inspired, Blanco shared two poems on Boston Public Radio on Wednesday that document National Park Service sites. These poems are part of a 2016 collection from the Academy of American Poets, which commissioned 50 poets to write about sites in their respective states for the National Park Service's centennial. The project was funded by a grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service to support art projects that engage people with the National Parks system.

The first poem Blanco shared highlights the jewel of his home state of Florida. “The Everglades” is written by Campbell McGrath, who was Blanco’s graduate school mentor at Florida International University.

“He’s like that little voice in my head, that editorial voice, that’s still with me,” Blanco said of McGrath.

The poem itself is “very meditative,” said Blanco, almost like the flowing river of grass that is the Everglades.

The EvergladesCampbell McGrath

Green and blue and white, it is a flag
for Florida stitched by hungry ibises.

It is a paradise of flocks, a cornucopia
of wind and grass and dark, slow waters.

Turtles bask in the last tatters of afternoon,
frogs perfect their symphony at dusk—

in its solitude we remember ourselves,
dimly, as creatures of mud and starlight.

Clouds and savannahs and horizons,
its emptiness is an antidote, its ink

illuminates the manuscript of the heart.
It is not ours though it is ours

to destroy or preserve, this the kingdom
of otter, kingfisher, alligator, heron.

If the sacred is a river within us, let it flow
like this, serene and magnificent, forever.

Copyright © 2016 by Campbell McGrath. This poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant.


In a nod to Boston, Blanco also shared the poem “Old South Meeting House” by January Gill O’Neil. The Old South Meeting House, located in Boston’ Back Bay neighborhood, is a Boston National Historical Park partner site operated by the nonprofit Revolutionary Spaces.

Boston’s first published Black poet, Phillis Wheatley, was a member of the meeting house, which served as a church and a meeting place for American Revolutionaries.

Old South Meeting House

January Gill O'Neil

We draw breath from brick

step on stones, weather-worn,

cobbled and carved

with the story of this church,

his meeting house,

where Ben Franklin was baptized

and Phillis Wheatley prayed—a mouth-house

where colonists gathered

to plot against the crown.

This structure, with elegant curves

and round-topped windows, was the heart

of Boston, the body of the people,

survived occupation for preservation,

foregoing decoration

for conversation.

Let us gather in the box pews

once numbered and rented

by generations of families

held together like ribs

in the body politic. Let us gaze upon

the upper galleries to the free seats

where the poor and the town slaves

listened and waited and pondered

and prayed

for revolution.

Let us testify to the plight

of the well-meaning at the pulpit

with its sounding board high above,

congregations raising heads and hands to the sky.

We, the people—the tourists

and townies—one nation under

this vaulted roof, exalted voices

speaking poetry out loud,

in praise and dissent.

We draw breath from brick. Ignite the fire in us.

Speak to us:

the language is hope.

Copyright © 2016 by January Gill O'Neil. This poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant.