Mapping our community with poetry
Installation May 18-26 at the Museum of Northern Arizona
I’m honored to have my ekphrastic poem about Hart Prairie included in the Poetry Maps exhibit and on Flagstaff public buses for the next year!
About the Project:
How do we understand where we are in a world that stretches far beyond our view? Maps provide the perspective we need to see beyond our own horizons or experiences. Nearly 50 years ago the Museum of Northern Arizona oversaw a massive project to create a geologic map of the Grand Canyon that helped geologists, river rafters, and canyon fans understand the layers of time revealed in the rock. A new exhibition shares the story of the Grand Canyon Dragon Map.
As we worked on that exhibition, we invited the community to help us create a different kind of map, one that reflects the connection between people and place. We received more than 100 submissions to our call for poetry and selected 28 to accompany art from the Museum collection. These selected poems can be viewed in an outdoor installation at the museum during the ARTx festival, creating another kind of map you can stroll through. The poems and art will also be placed on the Mountain Line buses and at locations throughout the community. You might see them at either Flagstaff Library, Elden Pueblo, the Flagstaff Mall, the Mead Hall, AZ Handmade Gallery, Picture Canyon trailhead, Buffalo Park, and the Visitor Center. More poems will keep popping up!