Poetry Under the Stars with Lauren Camp
This program offers the perfect chance to slow down, look and listen. Lauren Camp (Astronomer in Residence, 2022) returns to Grand Canyon to read a selection of sky, star, and moon poems from across time and cultures. The reading will be followed by a laser-guided constellation talk.
- August 21, 2026
- 8:30PM–9:30PM MST
-
Visitor Center
8 South Entrance Rd
Grand Canyon Village, AZ
86023 Meet outside the Visitor Center.
Let the poems wash over you. Let your eyes adjust to the darkness. Notice phenomena in the wide open sky.
Since her residency at Grand Canyon in 2022, Lauren has gone on to present dark sky-focused poetry programming at AstroFest in Southeast Utah, Sun & Moon Poetry Festival in Yellow Springs, Ohio; Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona; Death Valley National Park Dark Sky Festival, California; and Jemez Historic Site Star Party, Jemez Springs, New Mexico, and will be part of the Poets for Science Gathering at Kent State University in Ohio this fall.
Her Grand Canyon focused collection, In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), won the 2025 New Mexico Book Award for Poetry. She has read poems from the book on numerous podcasts and interviews.
Lauren Camp
Astronomer in Residence, 2022New Mexico Poet Laureate Lauren Camp is the author of seven poetry collections. Her work has been translated into Turkish, Mandarin, Serbian, Arabic and Spanish. Lauren lives in New Mexico, where she teaches through the state’s Poetry Out Loud program and her own community workshops. During her residency, Lauren spent her time writing poetry about night skies and natural darkness. She offered a few public poetry readings under the stars, which were followed by constellation talks given by park rangers. Lauren also collected poetry from visitors, asking thought-provoking questions about darkness in experimental installations throughout the park. She compiled the responses into collective poems.
