You Are Here: Poetry in Parks at Jackson Visitor Center

A portion of the picnic tabletop panel featuring a poem selected by the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate.

NPS

Quick Facts

Location:

Outside Jackson Memorial Visitor Center Plaza (in Paradise)

Significance:

Art installation by 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón

Amenities

1 listed

Picnic Table

This picnic table outside Jackson Visitor Center is an art installation by the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. Limón selected A. R. Ammons' poem "Uppermost" for this poetry installation as part of her signature project "You Are Here: Poetry in Parks." The project includes additional installations at six other national parks.

A recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal in 1994, Ammons’ work focused on change both in nature and in life.

Uppermost

by A. R. Ammons
The top
grain on the peak
weighs next
to nothing and,
sustained
by a mountain,
has no burden,
but nearly
ready to float,
exposed
to summit wind,
it endures
the rigors of having
no further
figure to complete
and a
blank sky
to guide its dreaming

_{A. R. Ammons, “Uppermost” from The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons: Volume I 1955-1977, edited by Robert M. West. Copyright © 1975 by A. R. Ammons. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.}

What Would You Write in Response to the Landscape Around You?

You Are Here, the signature project of the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, invites you to explore the relationship between language and the natural world through the words of poets and your own imagination.

Use #YouAreHerePoetry to share your thoughts!

• "Uppermost" by A. R. Ammons

  
  

  The 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón, reads the poem "Uppermost" by A. R. Ammons. Limón selected the poem for a poetry installation at Mount Rainier National Park as part of her signature project "You Are Here: Poetry in Parks."

  Credit / Author:

  Library of Congress

  Audio Transcript

  The top
  grain on the peak
  weighs next
  to nothing and,
  sustained
  by a mountain,
  has no burden,
  but nearly
  ready to float,
  exposed
  to summit wind,
  it endures
  the rigors of having
  no further
  figure to complete
  and a
  blank sky
  to guide its dreaming