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91��Ƶ’s Wick Poetry Center answered those questions on Sept. 15 at the Poetry for Our Planet event in New York City. The Wick Poetry Center collaborated with The Climate Museum and the Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center at the American Museum of Natural History to co-host the event for NYC Climate Week, focusing on bridging the gap between artistic expression and climate change awareness. 

The celebration began the night before, at an intimate dinner on Sept. 14 hosted by the Wick Poetry Center in partnership with The Climate Museum. The dinner, a gathering of supporters, introduced discussions on language and imagination, which put guests in a creative mindset and prepared them for the following evening. 

Guests at Poetry for Our Planet experienced poetry’s transformative power from all sides of the process. Poets Jane Hirshfield, who founded Poets for Science in partnership with the Wick Poetry Center, New York State Poet Laureate Kimiko Hahn, and Brandon Kilbourne, who is featured in the Museum’s exhibition “Black in Natural History Museums,” gave readings of their own work on the subject. A panel conversation followed with the poets and Ana Luz Porzecanski, director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the Museum, moderated by Miranda Massie, director of the Climate Museum. 

The evening concluded with David Hassler, executive director of the Wick Poetry Center, leading a writing exercise in which guests were encouraged to write their own “pledge” poems to the earth and biosphere, inspired by their personal feelings on climate change. The result of the night was a vast collection of heartfelt poetry expressing love for our planet and a need for reform. 

“Poetry has a unique ability to make complex issues feel immediate and deeply personal,” said Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities, who attended the event and spoke at the supporters’ gathering the night before. “What I loved about the Poetry for Our Planet event was that it demonstrated how the arts can bridge divides, foster understanding, and inspire meaningful engagement with the natural world at a time when climate science and environmental stewardship are increasingly part of broader public debates.” 

Porzecanski also reflected on the evening’s larger purpose. “We have all been under a ‘spell,’ we think we are separate from nature, that prosperity need not be collective, and therefore we need ‘new spells’ to break it. That night felt like new spells being cast, to try to bring a different world into being,” she said. 

Kent State’s efforts to draw ties between poetry and science will continue in November during the Poets for Science Gathering, Nov. 12–14 at the Kent Student Center. The first event of its kind, it will continue the conversation surrounding the arts, the sciences and the necessity of combining these disciplines for one cause.