Scott Huber
“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?
- George Eliot
What is poetry? I feel that this hackneyed and worn-out question haven't befriended an answer yet because the answer evolves and changes constantly. And still, Robert Frost, an American poet, was able to say that poetry was, the things left behind in translation, which suggests a criterion of almost scientific refinement. When in doubt, translate; whatever comes through, is prose, and the remainder is poetry. The French poet Paul Valery said that prose was to walk and poetry to dance. Indeed those two, both direct and romanticized explanation, tries to refine, maybe a difference more than a definition. Poetry is maybe an action, the essential reading out loud, listening, reaction, expression, and direction.
Who was access to poetry? And where is this asset located? David Orr said, “All poetry is public, in the sense that every poem implies an audience.” Poetry, or culture for a fact is not for only the upper class, it's at least supposed to be presented to everybody. I want to question and dive in on poetry in the public domain. I want to awaken and/or problematize the public domain's orderly configurations in social and conceptual space.
The project is about bringing poetry into public space, for people who don't interact with poetry, in a way you can’t escape it. You must react. That is what poetry is.
The project is placed at the crossing of Blackhorse Road and Forest Road, right outside Blackhorse Road underground.
I wanted to use a local poet to bring forward in this project, I found George Eliot aka Mary Ann Evans, she’s both a writer and a poet, both the dancing and the walking. In her book the mill on the floss.
This project is to communicate to you, the viewer, how I’m able to broaden the idea of who’s a poem's audience. I’m raising awareness and inspiring and upsetting the pedestrians at Blackhorse road. The crossing project is to convey the feeling a poem is able to convey, that a person so many years ago is able to describe such a specific and detailed feeling or thought, you moments before, thought only belonged to you.
For this, I had to edit my ideas with practical knowledge. I thought long about different spaces for both inspiration and innovation. I found my bike ride from school home was filled with red light hangouts. Standing in front of the crossroad, one foot leaning, the attentiveness diminishes. I brightly woke up when the lights turned green and I crossed a visually impaired texture on the pavement, I've got an idea!
I would use the crossing as a stage for the project and the senses both text and texture. Two ways to react to poetry. The bikers and drivers would also polish forward the protruding writing and symbols. It's like when a dog statue's head is lighter than the rest of the body, the reaction, and action polish.
