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.