Sites, Poems, and Poets on the Poetry Path

  • Site 1: Bucknell Hall

    Elizabeth Alexander
    "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe"
    This poem announces that poetry is greater than the love lyrics and elegies that we most often associate with the art. Anything we do can be poetry.

  • Site 2: Underground Railroad

    Terrance Hayes
    "For Paul Robeson"
    This poem pays homage to Paul Robeson, a professional football player, actor, and concert who was blacklisted for his political affiliations.

  • Site 3: Civil War Monument

    Eavan Boland
    "Heroic"
    In "Heroic," the figure on the military monument stares past the female speaker "without recognition."

  • Site 4: Churches

    Dorianne Laux
    "Dust"
    The speaker in this poem recognizes the divine but is too tired after a long day to receive it. The poem suggests that faith requires an open mind.

  • Site 5: Post Office Building

    Naomi Shihab Nye
    "The Story, Around the Corner"
    This poem is about the chatter of everyday life, which takes on a life of its own, growing and transforming until we no longer have control of it.

  • Site 6: Downtown

    Gary Soto.
    "How Things Work"
    Taking the form of a father's explanation to his daughter, "How Things Work" comments on the monetary transactions that bind a community together.

  • Site 7: Hufnagle Park

    Ilya Kaminsky
    "Author's Prayer"
    "Author's Prayer" suggests that we can pay our respects to the dead by praising life, by finding joy in something as ordinary as crossing a street. .

  • Site 8: Kidsburg Playground

    Bruce Lansky
    "How I Quit Sucking My Thumb"
    A jaunty rhythm and rhyme underscore the playfulness of this children's poem by Bruce Lansky, an appropriate piece for Lewisburg's "Kidsburg" playground.

  • Site 9: Lewisburg Cemetery

    Leslie Harrison
    "Solstice"
    Harrison contemplates loss and the passage of time, reminding us that humans are subject to the cycles of the natural world.

  • Site 10: Seventh Street & Moore Avenue

    John Koethe
    "The Proximate Shore"
    Koethe's poem reflects on the transitions and unexpected turns we encounter in life.