How to Host a Mindful Birding Poetry Walk by Judi Mae Huck
Sandhill Crane illustration by Judi Mae Huck
In February this year, I had the privilege of co-hosting a mindful birding poetry walk with Red Rock Audubon staff member Morrigan DeVito. During Poetry Month, I presented about my work with Eco Artists Dialogue.
This month, in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage celebrations, I give a few tips for hosting a walk of your own, sharing some of what we learned at our Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve event, featuring the poetry of Du Fu.
Our planning schedule was as follows:
10:00 arrival in library/resource room
10:05 participant introductions
10:10 concept introductions - mindfulness/mindful birding (Morrigan), zen/chang poetry and flow of poetry walk (JM)
10:17 assign Poems 1-10 to volunteer readers
10:18 Poem 1 inside the resource room
10:20 Move outdoors and begin one-hour loop, read Poems 2-10
11:20 take a group photo back at the starting point
11:30 closing thoughts on the poetry back by the library benches
Poetry Walk Considerations
Quality Over Quantity
Group size - we kept our registration small and had a dozen participants. We chose this for two reasons. First, we didn’t have a microphone or equipment to augment readers’ audio. Second, we curated about a dozen poems, which was the perfect amount for a group our size. Each participant could read one of the selected poems.
Knowing Your Venue / Season
There is more than one nature preserve in Las Vegas, and the Henderson Bird Viewing one has lots of wildlife! Particularly in late winter/early spring, there are hundreds of birds visible on the grounds every day. This made it easy for participants, about half of whom were first timers to both birding and that location, to see many birds in one place.
Moving Slow
We intentionally designed the walk around just one of the many ponds and gave the group 90 minutes to make the loop to return to the visitor center. We also timed the walk by doing a run-through with the actual poems in sequence the day prior. You, of course, can do a practice run at any time, but we were looking to get a sense of weather conditions so our practice walk was timed right at 24 hours prior.
Leaving Room for Questions
At each poetry stop, Morrigan provided brief natural history interpretation using her two years’ experience working with Audubon and leading many group trips throughout the Mojave. We also allowed for one question at each stop. This kept us on track with our timeframe. In Las Vegas, keeping participants cool and comfortable is a concern throughout the year, not just in summer!
Crediting Translators
The poems I curated on this walk were by Tang Dynasty Poet Du Fu, from Kenneth Rexroth translations. I think pairing ancient works to our modern circumstances speaks to the timeless quality of poetry. But as a poet, I do urge walk facilitators/event organizers to remember to credit their sources for translations. In the least, the name of a translator should be noted when sharing a literary work that was originally written in a language other than English. Bonus – contemporary poet Arthu Sze translated another of Du Fu’s poems on the Slowdown Podcast.
We hope you try poetry walks in your mindful birding communities! When you do, please let me know how it goes. Here are two more bird poems to enjoy, also by contemporary AAPI authors. And I recommend the Orion Spark Birds anthology, where the first work is from
Naming the Birds - W. Todd Kaneko
ginen the micronesian kingfisher [i sihek] - Craig Santos Perez
Judi Mae “JM” Huck is an Asian American poet and teaching artist currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. JM is passionate about community engagement. In 2023 she co-founded WeWrite! (wewritelv.com) to offer generous support for emerging AAPI writers to develop their craft. In 2024, she begins her MFA candidacy. Huck’s poetry synthesizes her understanding of culture, history, nature and science.
