Here is a neat idea from the local paper (Providence Journal). It
looks like a little birdhouse, is in a scenic spot and encourages the
user to jot down a poem in its journal. If people have trouble
viewing the link I will cut it in. Unfortunately the website does not
have the picture that is in the paper.

Trish

http://www.projo.com/southcounty/content/projo_20030528_davcol28.2dcf1
.html

Dave McCarthy: Poetry project makes magic in the woods
05/28/2003


RICHMOND -- To find a poem box amidst the glen, lovely surprise

I stop and wonder and remember 'Old Uncle Frank'

who introduced me to poetry, song, dance and the sky

Here he is today falling from heaven with the raindrops

That touching note was left, unsigned, in a wooden box at Richmond
Landing, a dandy little state-run access area off Route 91 that is
used by fishermen seeking trout in the Wood River.

The birdhouse-sized box is nailed to a tree in the woods next to the
fishermen's access -- a bucolic setting, complete with an old dam,
roaring white water, and, sometimes, trout.

Time's up

moving downstream

with the current

The old elusive trout

is nowhere about

That from another note left in the box.

The box encourages such notes, for it is no ordinary box.

This one was gaily decorated by students at the Charlestown
(Elementary) School. Tacked to it are wooden inchworms in all sorts
of colors, and a big red wooden ladybug.

Douglas Florian's famous poem about inchworms, etched into the inside
of the little box, greets the curious who open the box's door.

A pencil and pad encourage the curious to reply with their own odes
to the outdoors.

Throw your arms around a tree

the tree doesn't care, it's wood

take a saw and cut down

that tree

the tree doesn't care

but you should

That unsigned ode came from another of the little boxes, this one at
the Arcadia deer check station off Route 165 in Exeter.

The box in Exeter and the one in Richmond are among 12 creatively
decorated boxes scattered throughout the 197,000-acre, 300-mile-
square watershed of the Wood and Pawcatuck Rivers.

The watershed stretches from Coventry and West and East Greenwich in
the north, through South County to Westerly in the south, and
includes four Connecticut towns.

Sixty-five percent of the watershed is undeveloped. "It is one of the
more pristine watersheds in New England," is the way Ana Flores put
its.

Those birdhouse-sized boxes of poems are the brainchild of Flores, a
renowned Charlestown sculptor who has just taken up a six-month
station as artist-in-residence for the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed
Association.

The purpose of Poetry in the Wild is two-fold: to show, as Flores
said, "how the natural world has influenced so many poets," and, in
return, to get people thinking about the wild by sharing their
thoughts and reflections about their interactions with nature.

Poetry in the Wild was also designed to involve the community -- in
assembling and decorating the boxes, choosing poems to go into each
box, installing the boxes, and monitoring them by volunteer "poetry
wardens."

Seven of the boxes were designed by school children in Charlestown,
Ashaway, and in Exeter, and the others by artists and would-be
artists.

The volunteers serving as "poetry wardens" have the job of making
sure the boxes have pads and working pencils, and gathering the
thoughts left behind on paper by the hikers and fishermen.

But there is also a loftier, albeit more remote, goal.

Showing visitors a poem box at Meadow Brook Pond, Flores had to play
trash collector the other morning as she scooped up an empty vodka
bottle someone had thrown in the woods.

"How you turn people from slobs to poetry is my very idealistic way
of thinking," she said.

Meadow Brook Pond is a favorite of fly fishermen who wear bib-style
rubber waders to get to the best fishing spots.

One of them left this message on the pad in the Meadow Brook Pond
box: Thanks for a wonderful surprise this afternoon of fishing...

Although a list is available of where the boxes have been placed,
surprise is good, Flores said.

"If people just stumble on them, I don't mind them being surprised,"
she said. "It's just kind of a nice surprise to have in the woods."

The Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association has been surprised, too --
by the large number of replies that have kept the wardens hopping,
and by a lack of vandalism.

"I thought we would have to deal with vandalism, but the boxes have
been very well-respected, which is a nice comment on human nature,"
Flores said.

Poetry in the Wild began April 19, funded in part by the Rhode Island
State Council on the Arts.

Randall Rosenbaum, the council's executive director, said it is not
unusual for it to sponsor such "exhilarating" environmental art.

"I find artists to be extremely environment-friendly," Rosenbaum
said, explaining that "artists tend to be connected to 'place.' "

He cited such examples as the sculpture outside the Rhode Island
Resource Recovery Corporation's education center, made of trash from
the corporation's Johnston landfill -- an artistic reminder of the
need to recycle.

The Poetry in the Wild's boxes are scheduled to come down June 24,
although the project could continue if there's a demand and if more
volunteers sign up to relieve the current crop of hard-pressed box
wardens.

The closing of the project will be celebrated with an evening of
poetry and music on the banks of the Wood River. The celebration is
set for Friday, June 27, from 6 to 8 p.m., on the Wood-Pawcatuck
Watershed Association's campus, Aracdia Road, Hope Valley.

It is here one finds remembrance,

comfort, simple joys and a reason for living.

On the path to happiness

I make this a frequent rest stop.

That reply was left in the poetry box at Napatree Point on Watch Hill.

It, and the other replies, tend to back up Flores' summation of her
project:

"The need to express ourselves came out of our direct connection to
the natural world. I wanted this project not to detract from the
wildness that we are still so fortunate to have around us, but to
help punctuate it. Ideally I would hope to encourage people to engage
with nature with the consciousness of poets; treading lightly and
responsibly, sharing their thoughts and not their trash."

Dave McCarthy, the Journal's South County regional editor, can be
reached via e-mail at dmccarth@projo.com.

Where the boxes are
The Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association has placed 12 "poetry" boxes
in the watershed. The boxes, works of art themselves, contain a poem
by a famous poet, and a pad and pencil for a response. The birdhouse-
sized boxes are at the following sites:

Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association headquarters at Barberville
Fishing Access, 203 Arcadia Rd., Hope Valley. Box was created by
Asahway school students. The poet is Felice Holman.

Richmond Fishermen's Access, Route 91, Richmond. Follow the trail
along the river for a few yards. Box was created by Charlestown
students. The poet is Douglas Florian.

Meadow Brook Pond, Route 91, Richmond. Installed along trail about 50
yards from parking area. Box created by Marnie Lacouture; poet, Ellen
Bidgood.

Carolina Management Area trout pond, Switch Road, Richmond. The
entrance to the pond is off Switch Road, marked with a large sign.
Follow the dirt road and make a left turn. At the top of the hill is
parking for pond. The box is set among grove of trees to the left and
near a stone memorial plaque. It was created by Charlestown
Elementary School students; poet, Emily Dickinson.

Carolina Management Area, Pine Hill Road, Richmond. Second parking
lot after deer check station at the entrance to White Rock trail.
Fifty yards in on the trail is box created by Eileen Demaio; poet,
Mary Oliver.

Wyoming Dam/Fishing Access, Route 3, Wyoming. Box is by boat
entrance. It was created by Charlestown students. Langston Hughes is
the poet.

Arcadia deer check station, Route 165, Exeter. Box is at west
entrance, southern end of parking lot. Box created by Darlene Trew
Crist; poet, Robert Frost.

Blitzkreig Trail, Exeter. Take Mount Tom Road off Route 165 (the
first left after Aracaia deer check station). Follow dirt road for a
half-mile and stop before bridge. Box is on the right next to stream.
Box by Ashaway Elementary School students; poet, Czeslaw Milosz.

Roaring Brook, Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum, Arcadia Road, Exeter.
Museum is on a hill overlooking Roaring Brook. Box is in clearing by
river. Created by Nuweetoon School children; poem from the Kwakuitil
Indians.

Ashaway School Natural Trail, Hillside Avenue, off Route 3, Ashaway.
Natural trail follows a ridge to the west of the school. Box is in
small clearing with benches. The poet is William Blake.

Napatree Point, Watch Hill, Westerly. First box is one-third mile on
ocean side by large log. Box, Pat Arrow; poet, Marie Ponsot. To find
the second box, go to end of beach and the trail to an old fort from
the Spanish-American War. Box is one mile on the ocean side before
the rocks and trail to fort. Created by Ana Flores; poet, John Muir.