Site-Specific Poetry

We are pleased to introduce you to twelve poets who responded to a call for poetry based on scenes in several Shoreline parks. The commissioned poems are all new creations. Just as poets from the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) would write poems about famous landmarks that had previously been visited by poets in the past. Content of these poems, while driven by locations in parks, ranges from the fragility of nature to the challenging cultural and political moment.

As the seasons unfold, we’ll rotate poetry about the same location so that visitors will eventually get to see poems that share visual and other sensory details in common. We hope that as the “Voices in the Forest” project unfolds and offers the same effect of layering poems and creating linked verses over time about these park spaces.

Our goal is to bring artists, into the regional and global conversation as primary interpreters of landscape.

Poets and Poems

Mounted in signposts in the parks, a short description of the poetry program and a QR-code link to the poet’s work, including a voice file link where the spoken versions (often in several languages) can be heard.

We invite you to read, listen, reflect, and experience the natural environment through the creative and inspired lens of the following poets:

Kristin Alexander
Kilam Tel Aviv
Anne Beffel
Janee J. Baugher
Eileen Walsh Duncan
Mercedes Lawry
Saab Lofton
James B Moore
Hop Nguyen
Jorge Enrique Gonzalez Pacheco
Shin Yu Pai
Raul Sanchez

Locations

The locations occur in Shoreline Parks near features of the landscape like glacial erratics and madrone trees. Twelve are currently on view, each one appearing on custom-fabricated signposts meant to evoke Forest Service signage.

List of poets and poems by location [pdf]

Download maps for a self-guided tour.

Map of Shoreline with all locations [pdf]

Boeing Creek Park [pdf]
17229 3rd Avenue NW
Shoreline, WA 98177

Hamlin Park [pdf]
16006 15th Avenue NE
Shoreline, WA 98155

North City Park [pdf]
19201 10th Avenue NE
Shoreline, WA 98155

Paramount Open Space [pdf]
946 NE 147th Street
Shoreline, WA 98155

Translation of the poems was provided by Katherine Wickhorst (Jorge Enrique Gonzalez Pacheco); Eddie Tang (Shin Yu Pai), Raul Sanchez (Raul Sanchez), Hop Nguyen (Hop Nguyen), and Language Link. Readers of poems are the poets themselves, as well as Eddie Tang (Shin Yu Pai in Cantonese), Hervie Autor (poems in Tagalog),  Jin Ting (poems in Korean), and Amal Sheylila (poems in Somali). Joel Kennedy fabricated the sign posts. Lynn Gabrieli spent many hours creating the webpages. To everyone involved, including visitors, thank you so much for the interest and effort during very challenging times.

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Background

To locate and identify poets, we both invited some we had worked with previously as well as sought others through an Open Call. In the Call to Artists, we asked that the poems be short enough to post and record, 14 – 20 lines in addition to title. Poems were then laminated for display on custom-fabricated poetry signposts. 

"Lost and Found in the Field:" Plein-Air Poetry as Public Art

In partnership with Michigan Technical University, three of the poets from our "Voices" project participated in a webinar panel on exploring the various perspectives orbiting a single subject: a willow tree in Paramount Open Space. The poets, including MTU's Prof. Anne Beffel, Raúl Sánchez, and Hop Nguyen, read their poems in multiple languages and contrast experiences while exploring the creative process, facilitated by Prof. Carlos Amador and David Francis. The webinar is available here; scroll forward 3 minutes to the official beginning (1 hour program). 

We invite comments at artentry@shorelinewa.gov or on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shorelineart/

The project was made possible through a grant from the Washington State Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.