Freshkills Park Calebrates National Poetry Month this April

Join Freshkills Park in celebrating National Poetry Month this April with our second annual Haiku Contest. Parks wants to hear your impressions, experiences, thoughts and ideas of what Freshkills Park is and will be - in haiku form. Last year, three park poets were awarded prizes for their submissions and had their three-lined poems featured on the Freshkills Park Blog and across the web.

The 2,200-acre site has begun the transition from closed landfill to world-class park. Freshkills Park will have five main areas: the Confluence, North Park, South Park, East Park and West Park. Each area will have a distinct character and programming approach, developed in response to site opportunities and constraints, public meeting and stakeholder input, agency input, operation and maintenance concerns, and feasibility of implementation. The plan seeks to ensure that Freshkills Park will support richly diverse habitats for wildlife, birds and plant communities, as well as provide extraordinary natural settings for recreation--sports and programs that are unusual in the city, including horseback riding, mountain biking, nature trails and large-scale public art and cultural programming.

A haiku is a type of poem written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables for a total of 17 syllables. For example, here's one of our winners from last year:

a park in my mind
landfill scarred inlanders' hearts
reclaimed, restored land

E-mail your haiku, along with your name and age, to freshkillspark@parks.nyc.gov by 5 p.m. on Friday, April 23. Prizes will be awarded to the top three winners. Submit for a chance to receive a limited edition Freshkills Park hat. To learn more about Freshkills Park and to stay up to date on the latest news, visit the Freshkills Park Blog at www.freshkillspark.wordpress.com.

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