Welcome

This website describes a new, and unusual, land conservation program  — one that uses contemporary poetic voices to “move the message of the land.” The program, Voices from the American Land, seeks, through local readings, chapbook publication, and educational activities, to revive and amplify a dominant tradition in American letters  — the poetry of place, whether urban, rural, or wild. If the literary paradigm is Walt Whitman's celebration of our incredible landscape diversity (“Land of lands and bards to corroborate!”), the philosophical impetus is Aldo Leopold's land conservation ethic. “That land yields a cultural harvest,” he wrote, “is a fact long known but latterly often forgotten.” To proclaim the diversity and the cultural harvest is the goal of our program, thereby to celebrate and help protect America's extraordinary heritage of land and landscape.

Volunteer editors, with the help of an Advisory Council (shown at left; biographies are provided in the “About Us” section of the website), select the locales  — outstanding cultural and natural landscapes  — and the authors whose poetry can vividly reveal these landscapes. A major emphasis is placed on organizing local readings in cooperation with conservation and civic organizations, churches, and educational institutions, and distributing chapbook copies to attendees as well as in bulk to organizational memberships.

The program is supported primarily by “Voices Associates,” a distinguished group of member-subscribers who provide annual donations of $50 to $500 and receive, in turn, a complimentary subscription to the chapbooks, which are published quarterly. Those contributing $100 or more are listed in the chapbooks issued during their term of membership. Other sources of support include foundations and organizations, especially those in the locales treated with in the chapbooks.

Voices from the American Land is a program of The Center for the Study of Place, a 501(c)(3) organization. Accordingly, donations to the program are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.

For more information, do please visit the other sections of this website. We greatly appreciate your interest in our work.