Celebrate the poetry of Earth Day on April 22

The Stone Village Poetry Experience continues its celebration of National Poetry Month at 3 p.m. on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22 at the Brookside Trail bridge behind the Academy Building (across from The Green) in Chester.

The recently opened Brookside Trail crosses Lover’s Lane Brook and wends its way along a mile-long circle up the hillside and through the forest.

Coming together to share poems, participants can experience what Lucille Clifton refers to as “the mystery that surely is present/as the underside of a leaf/turning to stare at you quietly/from your hand.” Those who would like to celebrate Earth Day and Poetry Month are invited to bring “poems of the Earth” to read aloud as the group makes its way along the trail, stopping periodically to listen to another poem or two. Those who prefer not to walk the trail can meet at the bridge and listen to the first round of readings.

Poems will vary, and may include nature-related works by Vermont poets like Syd Lea—who opened the Stone Village Poetry Experience celebrations with a reading at the Town Hall earlier this month—and another former poet laureate, Ellen Bryant Voigt, or other renowned poets who wrote about nature, ranging from William Wordsworth to Sylvia Plath, to name a few.

In coming together to read these poems, participants will be honoring Earth Day, which was initiated in 1970 by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, National Poetry Month, which was created in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets and Chester’s Brookside Trail, which was commissioned by the select board several years ago and opened last fall.

In case of rain, the readings will begin at 3:15 p.m. in the Unitarian Universalist Church, 211 North St. in Chester’s Stone Village.

For more information, contact Tuck Wunderle at tuckerman@terrigenous.com