n April 23rd and again on May 20th, 2017, ArtYard began experimenting with events involving live poets stationed at banks of manual typewriters and members of the public who sat down to share their memories, stories, wishes, and sorrows. Some visitors commissioned poems for beloved friends. Others entered our Poetry Confessional where they shared a personal reflection or a secret in need of forgiveness to a poet stationed at a typewriter behind a screen.
By Jill Kearney
Founder-Executive Director
of ArtYard
The immediacy of the manual typewriters with their limited capacity to correct errors required a practice of spontaneous writing which the poets found challenging and liberating. And the encounters between poet and subject offered a rare opportunity to enter a stranger’s inner life, to have a meaningful conversation and to shift one’s point of view beyond one’s own.
Poetry confessional designed and built by Lucinda Warchol
One of the poems from the event, written by Erika Steffen
↑Lucinda Warchol created a zine with some of the poems from these events.
Copies of the zines were given to the writers during a gathering at the ArtYard residency.
Thank you all for being part of our Poetry on Demand events. We can’t wait to see you again. The adventure continues!
Illustrations by Elsa Mora
These poetry events have been a fantastic opportunity for us to experience a special sense of community. The poet’s generosity in sharing their time and creativity with everyone who showed up was a remarkable gesture and I personally want to thank them for that. Thank you Jill, for your vision, thank you Lucinda for buiding the cardboard confessional and the zines with so much care, and thank you to everyone who shared so many precious and intimate stories.
I can’t wait for the next edition of Poetry on Demand, and I hope that it becomes an ArtYard tradition.
Like Allen Ginsberg said: “The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.”
Let’s save the world through poetry!