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IU poet's work is "Poetry in Motion"
May 9, 2000
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Poetry in the New York City subways? Not spray-painted graffiti, but poetry?
It's actually happening. A poem printed on a poster is in two places in each subway car and bus, and an estimated 5 million people see it each day. New York and other major cities including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Portland are participating in the project, called "Poetry in Motion," which began in 1992. More information about "Poetry in Motion" is available at http://www.poetrysociety.org/motion/about-pim.html
The poem currently posted is the oldest known in the German language, translated by Willis Barnstone, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University. Its title is "I Am Yours":
I am yours,
you are mine.
Of this we are certain.
You are lodged
in my heart,
the small key
is lost.
You must stay there
forever.
The original author was a woman named Frau Ava, who lived around 1160. Barnstone's translation of the poem was published in A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now (Schocken Books, 1980).
"Poetry in Motion" was organized by the Poetry Society of America with Matthew Rohrer as coordinator. The project is sponsored by Barnes & Noble.
"I think the poem would make a nice marriage vow," said Barnstone, a poet himself as well as a translator and Biblical scholar. Today (May 9) he will receive the 1999 Midland Authors Award in poetry for Algebra of Night: New and Selected Poems 1948-1998 (Sheep Meadow Press, 1999). His literary translation of the New Testament is forthcoming with Penguin Putnam Books.
"I'm very pleased about the 'Poetry in Motion' project," he said. "Mass culture maltreats our minds and spirits, but this is an example of enlightened exposure. I wish our popular culture had more of that. A bus or subway is a marvelously lonely place for meditation and observation, so there couldn't be a more appropriate place for letting one's mind escape into the land of words and images."
Barnstone has some other suggestions for putting poetry in unusual places. One of his ideas he calls "poetry on diverse papers," such as wallpaper, lampshades and recipe cards.
"We think of poetry as an art living in obscurity, but we hear poetry all the time in song lyrics. The poetry sections of bookstores are large and thriving. We need poetry," he said.
In fact, every piece of waste paper that we normally just throw away could have something cultural on it, he said. "Bookstores could wrap items bought there in material that appears in textbooks -- astronomy, French verbs, a page from Romeo and Juliet, an etching by Goya, all produced very cheaply."
He noted that the Spanish name their large aircraft after great Spanish poets. Something similar could be done in other countries as well.
In 1999, Barnstone also published a memoir, With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires (University of Illinois Press), and To Touch the Sky: Spiritual, Mystical and Philosophical Poems in Translation (New Directions). This year, New Directions also will publish his blank-verse translation of the Book of Revelation.
Among the numerous honors Barnstone has won are the W. H. Auden Award of the New York State Arts Council (1986) and the Emily Dickinson Award of the Poetry Society of America (1985). He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.
(Hal Kibbey, 812-855-0074, hkibbey@indiana.edu)