Friday 11 March 2016

Polka Dot Poems


The National Capitol Commission defines cultural landscape as:

"a set of ideas and practices, embedded in a place."

Cultural Landscapes encompass the intangible and the tangible. The concept of cultural landscape pushes our preconceived concepts of heritage conservation beyond historical buildings, forcing us to explore the patterns and relationships that create our sense of place.

Poetry communicates the intangible and the tangible, by weaving images of the tangible to invoke intangible emotions between the author and the reader. In this way, poetry has the unique ability to create a shared sense of place.

High Park is a poetry hot spot
The Toronto Public Library has developed a website, called the Toronto Poetry Map. The project was spearheaded by George Elliot Clark, Toronto's Poet Laureate. It explores the ideas and patterns embedded in the city. The visitor to this website can select a location on the map which links them to poems associated with that location. The Toronto Poetry Map is a fun interactive tool. It allows the public to explore aspects of their city's cultural landscape that are easily missed.

To document associative cultural landscape requires diverse approaches and documentary styles. Cultural landscape researchers rely on literary works, landscape painting and cognitive maps to link a location to related stories and beliefs. Poetry Maps are a type of cognitive map. Researchers in environmental psychology, city planning, law enforcement, and tourism use cognitive maps to reveal human knowledge of sensory experiences.

Pairing poems with their referenced location reveals how our interactions with our city shape us.

The City is about stories
Yours, mine, what we want to hear
Look, Listen, Linger
The City is for People By: Honey Novick
Published in: Beatniks and Other Sacred Voice

The excerpts of poems, on The Toronto Poetry Map, are linked to where you can borrow the poetry book from the library.  

4 comments:

  1. I liked your title. I had no idea that poetry maps even existed. Thanks for sharing another informative post.

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  2. I agree, the title is great. It is always good to listen how a city can support the community. Toronto Poetry Map developed by Toronto Public Library looks just amazing. Thanks for sharing this.

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  3. Sarah you are amazing ;) ! great post !

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  4. Poetry was always something I sort of looked past. I didn't actively ignore it or seek it out until I became, for a time, involved with the slam poetry scene in St. Catharines. I was helping out a friend, by watching the door, selling merch or even hosting from time to time.

    Through this I was able to meet a lot of new people and hear a lot of new viewpoints. Some I agreed with, many I did not. And that's the beauty of it all.

    I like that there is now a dedicated program set up to spreading poetry in an interesting and meaningful way. Now I'm starting to wonder where else a program like this has been set up, or could be set up.

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