WADENA — A walk on the wild side this month at Green Island Preserve in Wadena includes poetry in the great outdoors.
The Poetry Walk along the trails at the “urban forest” features poems that were recently included in Minnesota Voices 2023, an annual program of the Wadena County Historical Society.
“I just put out a call for poets … and it's from mostly the region, you know, definitely Minnesota area,” said Lina Belar, director of the Wadena County Historical Society.
The poets whose works are displayed at stations along Green Islands Preserve’s trails are Julie Martin, River Maria Urke, Loren Niemi, Miriam Weinstein, Tyann Robertson and Alice A. Chu.
“I don't think there was anybody really outside of Minnesota that participated — maybe a few people, like, along the river — but it's been interesting,” Belar said.
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Green Island Preserve is a 60-acre parcel of land owned by Kent Scheer and Vicki Chepulis whose stewardship of the land includes making a space where people are invited to enjoy the peace and beauty of a carefully cultivated space for experiencing nature.
The couple has created a natural wonderland for contemplation, meditation and relaxation by repurposing Scheer's childhood home and family farm. Trails adorned with art, orchards, wildflowers, and a Kuti — a special hut dedicated to meditation — await visitors to this hidden natural wonder.
“Poetry is an interesting way to describe history,” Belar said. “In fact, it’s an old way to describe history. All the things that you studied in grade school — like Ulysses and Ovid — they were telling us history in poetry … in a poetic form.”
There are also 12 poetry stations along the trails on which the poems are posted, alternating with educational texts providing information on the purpose and function of Green Island Preserve's new forest. Different poets will be featured each month on the Poetry Walk.
Green Island Preserve is available for quiet outdoor activities such as strolling, birdwatching, picnics, kicksledding and more. It features outdoor sculptures, gardens, fruiting trees and shrubs, and a meditation hut among other things.
“The location (to showcase the poems) was kind of forced on me,” Belar said. “It became really popular during the pandemic. An outdoor event was a very good place to do anything with anybody because we couldn't really meet inside a building to share our poetry.”
Opening up the privately owned land allowed people to venture into the forested area in daylight hours to lawfully enjoy the trail system that winds through pine trees, deciduous forests and lowlands filled with cattails, sumac and chest-deep grasses.
Like the gardens of Europe, there are places to stroll through woods at Green Island Preserve, sit under a tree and read, or enjoy a picnic lunch with a friend. The land also includes a working orchard, gardens of rare herbs, wild deer and white doves who coo softly from their dovecote.
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“Kent is very interested in getting information out about the forest and about taking care of our environment,” Belar said of Scheer, co-owner of Green Island Preserve. “And I think very often poets are very interested in that, too. They're interested in history from a nature point of view.”
Minnesota Voices has been held annually for the past six years by the Wadena County Historical Society in celebration of National Poetry Month. A poetry reading was held April 27 via Zoom.
A booklet featuring 43 participants in Minnesota Voices 2023 will be published shortly and available on the website www.WadenaCountyHistory.org as well as a recording of the poetry reading.
Green Island Preserve is located at 850 Scheer Drive on the northern edge of Wadena. It is open daily to the public, free of charge, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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