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Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Poetry

Poetry and Prose at the Garden with Literary Audio Tours

Posted in Video on November 2 2011, by Rustin Dwyer

In the Nancy Bryan Luce Herb Garden
In the Nancy Bryan Luce Herb Garden

In case you hadn’t heard, the Garden offers a range of audio tours providing additional insights into our collections and exhibitions, as well as information about horticulture and the research initiatives going on here and across the world. Recently we told you about our partnership with the National Book Foundation and the Poetry Society of America, a collaboration undertaken to add a literary element to our tours.

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NYBG Literary Audio Tour – Sorry No Limericks

Posted in People, Video on August 9 2011, by Plant Talk

Early this year, the New York Botanical Garden partnered with National Book Foundation and Poetry Society of America to create a literary element to our audio tours. With support from an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, we reached out to a number of NYC-based authors and poets and asked them to produce works based on their experiences or certain areas of the Garden.

Below you can see one of our contributors for the summer: author Ana Boži?evi? who chose the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden as her inspiriation for her work, Rose Hopscotch.

You can access the audio tour two ways:

Using your cell phone, call 718.362.9561 and type in the number next to the audio tour symbol on signs throughout the Garden grounds. You can even call from home if you’d like.

What do you think of the new Audio Literary Tour? Are there any NYC-based authors you’d like to see for upcoming seasons? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Morning Eye Candy: Bed in Summer

Posted in Photography on July 22 2011, by Ann Rafalko

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

Bed in Summer ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Sky over the Conservatory

Sky Over the Conservatory (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)

Special thank you to Twitter user @oregonclematis, aka Linda Beutler, for the poem suggestion!

Morning Eye Candy: Today

Posted in Photography on May 25 2011, by Ann Rafalko

Paeonia 'May Lilac'If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Today ~ Billy Collins

 

This poem first appeared in Poetry (April 2000). Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen.

 

April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

Posted in Around the Garden, Video on May 17 2011, by Ann Rafalko

We seem to have hit a bit of a rough patch in the weather in New York City; it has rained everyday since Saturday, and the forecast says that there’s more in store. But, that needn’t put a damper on your plans to visit the Garden. The Garden is beautiful in the rain. Here’s a little video we put together celebrating the Garden in the rain, featuring the poetry of iconic New York City poet Langston Hughes.

Narration by Henry Kaiser. Find Henry on twitter @KaiserHenry.

Morning Eye Candy: Tulips

Posted in Photography on April 29 2011, by Ann Rafalko

Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

Tulips ~ A.E. Stallings

Tulips
Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen