“October’s crisp air is upon us, and for the jogger it is refreshing and energizing. I am in the middle of a city coming to terms with its history of how one brick kisses another brick to lay the foundation of the new, something far-reaching and ageless.”

These are poet Virgil Suárez’s reflections on Cascades Park. The FSU English professor and winner of a G. MacArthur Poetry Prize has made Tallahassee his home for several decades now. He recalls when Cascades was once deemed uninhabitable, littered with hazardous waste signs. He witnessed its rebirth and revitalization, and yet from the ashes, how it is steadily being encroached upon by new development and high rises.

“Cascades was an off-limits place, and they took something that was completely polluted and turned it into something beautiful,” says Suárez.

His words will live on as part of the Voice of Trees Tallahassee sound walk. A collaboration between COCA, 100 Thousand Poets for Change and the City of Tallahassee Parks, Recreation & Neighborhood Affairs Department, this walk uses the Echoes app to allow pedestrians to access readings of poems around the park.

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