Poetry II

Spring for Poetry in Takoma Park!

Have you noticed the poetry signs all over town? This is a project created by Ann Slayton of the Friends of the Takoma Park Maryland Library along with faculty and students of Montgomery College and Columbia Union College, and the City's Department of Public Works. The project includes a diverse selection of 36 poems by poets of the Americas, produced as 13 x 19-inch posters. Each poem was individually designed by typography students at the School of Art and Design at Montgomery College. The poets range from Emily Dickinson (“I shall keep singing”) to Rita Dove (“Fox Trot Fridays”) and in between, Theodore Roethke (“My Papa’s Waltz”), Langston Hughes (“Mother to Son”), Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese”) and Pablo Neruda (“Ode to Salt”). There are also poems by four former Maryland Poet Laureates, Lucille Clifton, Reed Whittemore, Linda Pastan, and the late Roland Flint.

update: where are the poems located?

List of Poems

1. Love After Love, Derek Walcott
2. Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden
3. Fox Trot Fridays, Rita Dove
4. Good Times, Lucille Clifton
5. Mother to Son, Langston Hughes
6. Rune, Muriel Rukeyser
7. Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
8. Black Boys Play the Classics, Toi Derricotte
9-10. I’m Nobody, I Shall Keep Singing, Emily Dickinson
11. Returning, Jean Connor
12. Who Am I, Felice Holman
13. The Dogwoods, Linda Pastan
14. The Wind One Brilliant Day, Antonio Machado
15. Ode to Salt, Pablo Neruda
16. The Distant Footsteps, Cesar Vallejo
17. Coyote Shaman Songs, Jaime de Angulo
18. Afternoon on a Hill, Edna St. Vincent Millay
19. A Blessing, James Wright
20. Skin, Roland Flint
21. Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be The Same, Robert Frost
22. Chansons Innocentes, e.e. cummings
23. Fierce Girl Playing Hopscotch, Alice Fulton
24. Spring, etc., Reed Whittemore
25. My Papa’s Waltz, Theodore Roethke
26. Shoulders, Naomi Shihab Nye
27. Notice What This Poem is Not Doing, William Stafford
28. From Six Variations, Denise Levertov
29. Swift Things Are Beautiful, Elizabeth Coatsworth
30. Housekeeping, Natasha Trethewey
31. From Four Songs of Life(1,3), Ray Young Bear
32. Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
33. A Story, Li- Young Lee
34-35 This Is Just to Say, William Carlos Williams and Variations on a Theme, Kenneth Koch
36. Miss Rosie, Lucille Clifton

At the library we have a paper copy of the list of locations.