Oregon State professor and poet, Jennifer Richter, worked with Sharon Gracen of Friends of the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex to solicit poems by local writers that were informed and inspired by the Finley, Ankeny and Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuges. In addition to appearing here in Traverse, the poems have been printed and installed at various sites within the refuges.

Sharon Gracen recalls standing in the blind over Finley’s Cabell Marsh, watching the dusky Canada geese. “I immediately thought of Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Wild Geese’ and wished I had it there to read.” That moment gave rise to the idea of placing nature poetry in the refuges.

“We don’t often get the chance to read a poem in the environment that inspired it,” says Jennifer Richter. “This collaboration of writers and refuges is a rare gift, a powerful reminder that the lens of poetry can help us re-see what’s right in front of us.”