Photo by Lisa Catherman
For the past few years, I’ve had the honor of serving as the first Poet Laureate of the Ryan Observatory at Muddy Run in Pennsylvania. While I may be the first poet laureate appointed to an observatory, I certainly hope I won’t be the last.
This role began in 2022, after one of my annual National Poetry Month emails caught the attention of Al Ryan, the Observatory’s founder and director. Al and I go way back—25 years, in fact—to when he was legal counsel at PECO Energy and I worked for The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania.
We first met on the Susquehanna River near the Conowingo Dam, where PECO had sought the Conservancy’s help mapping sensitive habitats during its FERC license renewal. That collaboration led to a friendship, and my recommending Al for the PA chapter’s board of trustees. Over the years, we kept in touch—mostly through my poetry emails—until Al extended this unique invitation.
Saturday, April 12th, marks my final visit to the Observatory as Poet Laureate, and I look back on these past three years with pride. Why bring poetry to a science-based observatory? Al believed that the Observatory’s STEM mission (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) should embrace the Arts as well—transforming STEM into STEAM.
Alongside the Observatory’s Arts Committee, we framed our mission this way: “Poetry and astronomy stem from the same sense of curiosity and imagination. They both begin with observation and attention, move toward reflection and memory, and ultimately seek meaning in what is seen.”
We explored how other institutions have brought science and poetry together—such as Poets House’s collaborations with zoos and science centers—and began weaving poetry into the Observatory’s monthly open houses.
One of my favorite events was a live conversation with Derek Pitts, Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute (you can watch it here). A local teacher in the audience was so inspired, she had her students write poetry about the stars. We invited her back to share their work and speak about the project. At another event, we had the audience contribute lines on 3×5 cards, which I then assembled into a collaborative poem. And every solstice, I shared seasonal poems with our guests.
We also created poetry signage around the grounds, beginning with my original poem “River of Stars,” followed by a poem about Pluto from the Observatory’s youngest volunteer, Gabe Catherman, and finally Ada Limón’s “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” Her poem, written for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, now travels aboard the spacecraft—engraved on its body along with names submitted through NASA’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign. Together, they’ll journey 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system.
I’m deeply grateful to Al Ryan and the Arts Committee for inviting me into the Observatory’s orbit. It’s been an unforgettable journey, and I hope whoever steps into this role next will continue to explore the cosmic crossroads of science and poetry—boldly going where few poets have gone before.
Here is “In Praise of Mystery” by Ada Limón:
“In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa”
Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we
pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.
–Ada Limón
“In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” Copyright Ada Limón, 2023. All rights reserved. The reproduction of this poem may in no way be used for financial gain.
Ada Limón’s poetic world is one where dislocation leads to an opening up rather than a shutting down, an unfolding rather than sequestration, and where doors are open, not closed. She isn’t afraid to confront her emotions or to let the reader in to observe her reactions to those emotions.
Yet, Limón’s is not a confessional poetry or, at least, not in the derogatory sense of that word. Limón tells stories and she’s proud of that fact.
“It’s ingrained in human nature to crave stories,” Limón explained in an interview. “We want them read to us as children, to be told around the fire, we want to see ourselves, our lives in these stories, and to have a sense of both escapism and transformation. People don’t know that poetry can do that, because they have the preconceived notion that poems take a tremendous amount of work to even comprehend, let alone be moved by.”
Her poems are not meant solely for the page, but to be read aloud. Her language is fluid, whether describing dreams or reality or the blurring between the two.
As Jeffrey Cyphers Wright wrote in The Brooklyn Rail, “She personalizes her homilies, stamping them with the authenticity of invention and self-discovery.”
Born March 28, 1976, Ada Limón is originally from Sonoma, California, and now divides her time between there and Lexington, Kentucky. Her first collection of poetry, lucky wreck, won the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize. She is also the author of This Big Fake World, winner of the 2005 Pearl Poetry Prize, and Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed Editions, 2010).
Here is Ada Limón’s poem, “Sharks in the Rivers”:
We’ll say unbelievable things
to each other in the early morning—
our blue coming up from our roots,
our water rising in our extraordinary limbs.
All night I dreamt of bonfires and burn piles
and ghosts of men, and spirits
behind those birds of flame.
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through.
It is a short walkway—
into another bedroom.
Consider the handle. Consider the key.
I say to a friend, how scared I am of sharks.
How I thought I saw them in the creek
across from my street.
I once watched for them, holding a bundle
of rattlesnake grass in my hand,
shaking like a weak-leaf girl.
She sends me an article from a recent National Geographic that says,
Sharks bite fewer people each year than
New Yorkers do, according to Health Department records.
Then she sends me on my way. Into the City of Sharks.
Through another doorway, I walk to the East River saying,
Sharks are people too.
Sharks are people too.
Sharks are people too.
I write all the things I need on the bottom
of my tennis shoes. I say, Let’s walk together.
The sun behind me is like a fire.
Tiny flames in the river’s ripples.
I say something to God, but he’s not a living thing,
so I say it to the river, I say,
I want to walk through this doorway
But without all those ghosts on the edge,
I want them to stay here.
I want them to go on without me.
I want them to burn in the water.
–Ada Limón
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Scott Edward Anderson
Scott Edward Anderson's Poetry Blog 