Butterfly Effect by Martin Bridge

Writing the Land: Virginia

This anthology is a collection of conserved lands from across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Each of 12 chapters contains poems, photos, and information about actual conserved properties from a land conservation organization or Tribe. They celebrate the beauty and value of conserved lands of all kinds including public wildlife management areas, conservation easements, city and riverside trails and park systems, and shoreline farms. Explore lands you've not yet seen, or re-explore familiar territory through poetry and art. Either way, we hope you are inspired by this diverse portrait of place.

Participating Partners:

Rappahannock Tribe and Chesapeake Conservancy

Capital Region Land Conservancy

Northern Virginia Conservation Trust

The Nature Conservancy—Virginia

Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources

Blue Ridge, Central Virginia, and Southern Virginia Land Conservancies

Virginia Outdoors Foundation

The Piedmont Environmental Council

New River Land Trust

Friends of the Lower Appomattox River

Northern Neck Land Conservancy

Virginia Eastern Shore Land Trust

Praise for Writing the Land: Virginia

Writing the Land: Virginia collects voices from across the Commonwealth to remind us that we all share a common inheritance, and a common responsibility to those that follow us. Virginia’s natural resources have protected, provided for, and shaped us for generations. The reflections in this book highlight the connections between the land and the people who live on it.

—Ellen Shepard, Virginia’s United Land Trusts, Executive Director

This volume is a wonderful addition to the Writing the Land series.  Thirty-nine talented poets engage with the woods, waterways, and creatures of Virginia’s conserved lands and offer their personal reflections about why these places matter to our collective past, present, and future. One learns about the quiet but important work of dedicated land conservancy groups across Virginia through the profoundly moving voice of poetry.  Their words are breathtaking, nurturing our souls as only poetry can -- yet also reminding us how much more needs to be done.      

—Sandra Gioia Treadway, Librarian of Virginia Emerita

Poems inspired by conserved land will make their readers want to get into these landscapes, and also hope for more land protections ahead. With images of Virginia’s fast and slow flowing rivers, tree-filled ravines, lush forests rich with birdsong and the movements of diverse wildlife, the poetry makes one grateful to be a Virginian, or to have at least visited these sacred places while passing through this gorgeous state.. 

—Brian Kane, Mid-Atlantic Manager, Old-Growth Forest Network