Assignment 2: Haiku Walk
For my walk I collected a number of haiku poems, which I then scattered about my neighbourhood by writing them in chalk on the sidewalk in various locations. The intent is to provide brief moments of surprise to passers-by, which might pull them momentarily out of their routine and perhaps provide a small moment of contemplation about the world around them (or at least make them wonder about who wrote the poem there). The locations I chose for some of the poems directly reflect their surroundings (for example a haiku about a pine tree written on the sidewalk in front of a pine tree) but others are less obviously connected and just seemed appropriate for the space (a poem about loneliness in an alleyway).
Haikus I think are particularly appropriate not only because they are short, but because they are about closely observing the everyday world around you and attempting to capture a particular moment of that world. Haikus are very intimate poems and are very connected to a bodily experience of the world – they often elicit senses other than sight, particularly sound and smell. Many are about nature, and seem to see nature as a redemptive force, but modern haikus often deal with very urban moments (rising gas prices / an attendant changing numbers / in a pouring rain - Michael Dylan Welch). These newer haikus are interesting to me because they suggest that it is still possible to have moments of “presence� and groundedness in the modern world.
I did notice people stopping to look at some of the poems after I wrote them, but only very briefly. I tried to get some photographs of people in the act of looking or reading the poems, but felt very uncomfortable camping out and spying on people so was not very successful (and of course once I got my camera out, no one came). I photographed the poems and in some cases a wider shot of their location (unfortunately some of the poems aren’t very legible, so I’ve also written them below the photos), you can see them here:
http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ris_ristastic/album?.dir=/39fe&.view=t