That last event, Unsilenced Grief, wet my poetry-whistle and subsequently I blew out a series of poems that moved from the darkness of traumatic grief into the light of the present…the light of healing. The poem from that installation, Now That I Don’t Need You was the seed that sprouted lyrics and images from both ends of the spectrum. What became the first poem of the series is called Express Or Die, followed by Now That I Don’t Need You, Finding No, Finding Yes, and I‘m Listening.
I was feeling courageous and creative after that event, and headed out for a month of traveling in Greece and Athens. Athens is known for its take-it-to-the people public murals and graffiti art. I knew I wanted to share my poetry on the street and went through a few ideas of how to do that.
Idea #1: Maybe a stencil of each poem that I could spray paint over (nawww…too hard to get designed and produced – other people needed, and not sure where to obtain spray paint in a strange city – because, yeah…can’t take it on a plane).- Idea #2: Then I thought maybe free-form graffiti text drawn with portable oil based sticks I found at the local skateboard shop/tattoo parlor that looked like giant lip gloss tubes (but also a nope because that’s a lot of words to write out with a strange medium on walls that I couldn’t predict the surface texture).
- Idea #3: I finally settled on printing out each poem in large, colored font (lov’n my new Epson inkwell printer) with coordinated borders. Then I had each page laminated. All that was left to procure was duct tape once I got to Athens. If duct tape is good enough for emergency situations on the Apollo capsules and space station, then it should work on brick, wood, stucco – whatever I encountered.
I was fortunate that the artist (Nick – his easy Americanized nickname) I booked for an “Alternative Athens” tour was excited to help create art with me. He took me to a hole-in-the-wall hardware store that had various colors of duct tape, which the old grizzled owner lifted down from a high shelf with a handy stick & hook, as well as blades to cut and trim.
Nick knew the neighborhoods that were up and coming, where I could post without worry about other artists feeling encroached on (there is a silent war going on between the muralists and the graffiti-ists). It was a little scary though, just doing it. Just walking up to a potential wall, un-shouldering my backpack and getting out multiple plasticized sheets, tape, blades, holding it up, shifting, taping, cutting…ya know: Doing It!
I only got three of my poems posted. I just didn’t have time to get up the other two. I found some potential walls later when I was in Lisbon, but it was rainy the whole time and duct tape really needs a dry surface. Oh well. I’m looking for some places to put up those remaining poems, as well as duplicates of the other three, in my hometown back in Vermont. I want it to be accessible to people on the street, to the folks who don’t often hear and see their experiences of surviving trauma, death, greif, and striving posted publicly, accessibly. So far I have asked permission of building owners with no success, and I hate to go into the shadows, alleyways, under bridges, etc to reach my audience because that perpetuates the stigma. I hope I ultimately find a place in the light to bring this expression out and to life. Stay tuned.