‘A magical place’: New little free library brings poetry to the Fredericton Botanic Garden

Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers (left) and Fawn Parker, the city's newest poet laureate, are pictured beside the Little Free Poetry Library in the Fredericton Botanic Gardens. (Courtesy: Fawn Parker)

There’s a poetic new addition to the Fredericton Botanic Garden. It’s now home to a Little Free Poetry Library.

“It gives the message that poetry is for anybody and everybody,” says Fawn Parker, the city’s fourth Poet Laureate, who is behind the initiative. “You don’t have to be really well-read or experienced. It’s just there for you.”

While “little free libraries” are a common sight around the region, this one in the park caters specifically to poetry. It was unveiled on Tuesday and contains donated books that include works by New Brunswick poets Lynn Davies and Ian Letourneau.

“You can take something. You can leave something. You can just read something and put it right back. I really want it to feel like it belongs to the whole city,” says Parker.

Parker started her two-year position as Fredericton’s Poet Laureate in September 2024. The 31-year-old, who is working on her PhD in writing at UNB, came into the role with the goal of making poetry more obtainable.

“I just find poetry is so often inaccessible or feels inaccessible,” says Parker. “Even to me as someone who was a writer and studies writing in the institution, it just feels like it’s a language that we’re not really taught to speak. And because there’s that kind of difficulty of getting into it, I think a lot of people don’t try or pre-emptively think it’s not for them. And I just think that’s so untrue. I think poetry can be anything, whether it’s simple or it’s rhyming or it’s really complicated.”

The Little Free Poetry Library was built by woodworker Vic Dunphy. The design, with its red metal roof and distinct ‘backwards’ orientation, pays homage to late Fredericton-native and internationally acclaimed poet Bliss Carman’s home that’s still standing in the city’s downtown.

“Finally seeing it installed and available was fantastic because it actually has the true likeness of Bliss Carman’s home, which makes it a bit unique,” says Julie Wright, a board member for the Botanic Garden. “It’s just a wonderful addition.”

The Garden is located on a 21-hectare property at the west end of Odell Park and is open to the public, free of charge, year-round.

“It’s also located in our NB Literature Garden,” says Wright. “So, when you walk through that particular garden, there is a little a poem or something specific that has been done by a New Brunswick author for each of the different plants.”

The community garden, which is marking its 35th anniversary, had a local company create custom bookmarks for the celebration.

“We thought that’d be something nice to be able to put in it as well,” says Wright, who hopes people will take the opportunity to sit down with a poem on one of the Garden’s memorial benches. “The garden’s kind of a magical place, and poetry is a little magical as well. They’re just a good fit for one another to be able to read a beautiful little poem while you’re looking at some beautiful plants and listening to the birds sing.”

Parker says she hopes to continue making poetry more accessible by adding free books to spaces like waiting rooms, long term care homes, and hospitals.

“Spaces that maybe feel a little isolated or lonely, and where it wouldn’t be easy to go to the library or go to a bookstore,” says Parker. “Just have books kind of right there for people to grab.”

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