A poem to guide narrative

We, Arriving

We arrive
And re-arrive
Columbuses and Roger Williamses
And are still strangers in this forest

We were given a gourd,
a corn stalk
aquidneck island
and the cliff walk,
fashioned cameos
of our sweethearts
with silver from Toledo
and gold hauled from the Comstock

Main street echoes with the
minuteman’s musket
Horseshoe clip clopping
beating of the tell-tale heart…
the panhandler’s plastic bucket
backward glances of the cherokee
the trail of tears, and the ride of Paul Revere
We are living between the rhythm of the
Creak splash
Creak splash
Creak splash
The cry of the herring gull
And the foreign stirrings
of countless starlings.

We sit with friends
imagining first footsteps
on plymouth rock
And as we sit, we imagine again
new footfalls, free of Baptist sin,
Free of western guilt
Free of native grief

Carefully laid bricks buckle and split
an uneasy nostalgic skin
Protects our tender modern foot
From the rugged glacial till
The disintegrating hill, the river silt
and the thirsty honey locust root.

Last night’s rainfall
has trickled through the herringbone
Last year’s fortune
has slipped through the cracks of the old stone bank
but Depressions in the granite
Accommodate the puddles,
recycled particles
of fickle water,
perhaps the same molecules
that swallowed the burning decks
of the Gaspee as it sank.

We walk on
bluestone
And the bedrock below,
breathing the remaining emanations
of thirteen million trees
replaced
by thirteen colonies.
The river finds us brimming with hope
in an increasingly anaerobic America
we amble by monuments to the countless dead
stand on concrete banks, as the fish die hemmed
and we hold our breath
because the Narragansett and the Chesapeake are our lungs
and the menhaden are our hemoglobin.

Politically reawakened
by the spirit of biracialism
multiracialism
post-racialism
we are one people-ism
but unemployed
and pulsing with the blood
of the Narragansett
the Taino
the Visigoth
and Nahua
the Quechua
the Pequot
and the anglo-saxon.

The daylighted waters
meet a city burning bonfires of togetherness
and populated by longing.
we hear the rushing water
and ask the orange embers-
Will we launch paper boats
on the Woonasquatucket
And dip canoe paddles in
the clear Moshassuck?
will we grow with the oak?
will we inhabit the stone?
Or will the patchwork of streets that glittered
In the eyes of city planners and smiths
manufacturers and metal workers
lead us ever forward
into the confines of our own polished homes?

What is the prospect of a dirty city?
a river contained and tamed
since the hurricane of ’38
Slammed headlong into the land’s face
How will we claim
this Rockwell defaced, refaced, misplaced
a homeless man on fire in space,
a handful of plastic arrows ,
an acid rain bleached bouquet of laurels ,
a freedom-seeking missile,
Are these our symbols?

My New England foothills majesty,
my soaring eagle scavenger,
ever forward we move without foresight
seeking penance and revenge
simultaneously, escaping
from the hatred that shot Lincoln with a derringer
Burying memories to a twenty gun salute,
the other in our boot,
holding a canteen full of pride,
so we leave, the pioneers,
bound for California.

And the oceans are met on all coasts
the water runs from earth to sky,
from the aquifer to the factory
and mostly to the mouth of the city,
sheeting down benevolent and college street
down the throats of our beleaguered rivers.
The walls of glen canyon watch
as their creator trickles through concrete and rebar.
We are seabirds that fight over a transparent fish,
pecked apart by an American wish,
what will we say to our children
that for too long
we tested our mother’s patience,
that we could not imagine a different place
where coyotes and crows
oaks and maples
pulsed with the same energy as the homo sapiens
that we perished, strangers still,
feeling lost inside a nation?

Sections

Took me forever to draw up these sections of the site using google earth, illustrator, and CAD. Amazing how it takes so much to make something simple.

Poetic acts, poetic potential

Today I went out with the intention of creating a poetic act, imposing a narrative on the landscape, and basically just making something with words. Here are the results, I think that spray painting snow is interesting and apropos to my thesis in that it is an appropriation of space, but one that is intended to be processed and then fade. It references more permanent methods of appropriation, makes use of the natural structure of a site, and yet directly acknowledges said site's potential for metamorphosis. I expected someone to reprimand me for using toxic materials or for another reason, but instead three cars stopped and asked me my own question, "how will you remember today?" I could only answer that I didn't know yet.

I photographed the image of the highway overpass because to me it embodied the idea that someone can make a visual statement that may remain hidden for years, and then eventually, with the changing of its site's nature, can suddenly become poignant in an unexpected way. The way that venus is currently placed reminds me of Boticcellis original work, with the woman framed by other entities/forces, and here, instead of emerging from the frothy sea, she emerges from the rubble of old infrastructure. Hope you enjoy.

Definition of Poetry

Merriam Webster says:

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 a : metrical writing : verse b : the productions of a poet : poems
2 : writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm

In terms of my thesis and landscape, the parts of this definition that are most crucial are these:

1) Formulation (I will substitute the word "reconfiguration", as I believe the essential poetic act to be one of invention through the re-combination and re-juxtaposition of known perceived elements, and NOT the spontaneous invention of a single, image, idea, or master plan.) Can making architecture or painting essentially involve the same process as making poetry. Yes. Are all pantings and works of architecture poetic? No. Whether something is poetic or not is quite subjective, but I would argue that there is a level of success that can be ranked according to the following criteria: 2) Unlike some would argue, the level of success is not based on an esoteric, ephemeral, and indescribable "je ne sais quoi." Although we might not be able to say why a poem moves us, I believe that a work becomes poetic when it reconfigures our usual perceptions by enabling new ways to imagine. The "poetic" lies in an artist's ability to reconfigure something in a way that brings about what Webster's described as that second crucial part of the definition: "concentrated imaginative awareness."

3) "through meaning, sound, and rhythm" - This part of the definition is much more vague, and I would say it is more useful to look at the creation of poetry in terms of meaning, rhythm and sensory input. Each kind of poetry uses a different sensory channel (for instance music uses sound and painting uses light, and some forms of art use multiple channels). Rhythm does seem to be an adequate word for grouping the structural elements behind poetry (e.g. alliteration, repetition, cadence, lack of rhythm, etc.) The elements of a poem (be it words, paint colors, wood and brick, etc) are imbued with a set of characteristics and histories, and as such they mean something to each artist or viewer.

So my definition of poetry becomes:

A process of reconfiguration that inspires imaginative awareness of experience, creating an emotional response through meaning, sensory input, and rhythm.

At the moment I am most interested in creating architecture with WRITTEN poetry as the basis for the design. I am still figuring out how this is done, but Ann Pendleton's "The road that is not a road" is helping me establish the validity of this act. What I can say is that the written and spoken word seem to be the most complex, societally crucial, and uniquely human form of sensory communication that we use. It seems appropriate to utilize the power of the word, as it is perhaps the most versatile basic poetic element. A brick or a dab of red paint or a touch do certainly have meaning, but if the combination of these elements could come close to having the same communicative potential and variety of meaning as the word, then humans around the globe wouldn't all be talking to each other.

The versatility of a powerful image

So today I wrote in my notebook: "Also, maybe one element or force with enough aesthetic, symbologic, or conceptual power can create poetic moments in a variety of spaces, objects, etc." Here's the eerie part, then I checked my facebook and my brother (who is in sonora) told me to check out his latest photos. I'll let you view them and decide if we have some sort of telepathy going on.-----

Reinvention 1

Here's what I mean when I talk about reinvention through appropriation and improvisation. The dialog between 3 forces. In these Images, the original built forms have been used and appropriated by both the public and the natural forces native to their space. The result is something far more interesting than the built form, the mark of the public, or the natural element. Two of them were taken in Providence. Can you guess which ones? Props to Laura Blosser for providing the icicle shot.

Poem #1

Is poetry a valid form of site analysis? I hope so.... Also, why can't I ever spell analysis right on the first try? I'm a great speller, it makes no sense. I'm thinking I might not do any kind of on-site analysis without writing a poem. Although I can't quite explain how it will drive my thesis yet, or explain to my advisor how poetry can be a driving force behind design, I somehow know in my heart that it can be an equally effective way of seeing and explaining a site as a sketch model, analysis diagram, or drawing can be. Can written poems be the sole method of analysis and design formation? Probably not, but who knows? Whenever I write a poem about a place I find that I see that place differently when I return. I cannot say the same for many of the diagrams I've made in the past. Having to reconfigure and play with words and images that come from the site, I end up reconfiguring how I view and define the site itself. Here goes the first one:

RECURRENT URBAN PHRASES

Flocks of words like migrant birds

the sky teems with verses.

Legs lend themselves to footsteps quick

that shuffle locust leaves on brick,

and trace a student's movement.

Ha carries books of passages

over lawn and gravel,

fashioning ink lines, architectural imaginings,

shadows in the trees, flittering black starling wings.

Granite benches feel the stress

of countless sliding skateboard decks.

Nonetheless the stone is brave,

the river hemmed, a space is made

along the dirty water.

SITE, GOALS AND METHODS

SITE- Reasons for choosing

A - -Area of constant and considerable human traffic

- L -lengthwise directionality offers potential for narrative space.

C-- - Poised at a series of confluences and contradictions (hill and river valley, East Side and the rest of Providence, College vs. City, water and land)

D- - Proximity to water fire.

E - -Proximity to courthouse, which also represents the confluence of city/justice system vs. citizens/public.

F- - -Intangibility, ambiguity between content and context, and disorganization of existing design provides an ideal context for public interaction with the land and the creation of a meaningful place.

G- - RISD! The school, being urban and contained within city buildings, lacks areas where the RISD community can interact with the city at large. A park that functioned as more than a through-way for students and full time residents alike might constitute a perfect place for dialogue and meshing of ideas. The park is surrounded by both RISD buildings and also buildings crucial to the government of Providence (not to mention several historically significant structures, i.e. the old bank building). The providence river delineates a stark boundary between the eastside and downtown, the local and the foreign, students and city dwellers, the well to do and the downtrodden, the world of academia and the rest of Rhode Island. The park I’m choosing forms a large part of the view of the eastside and thus has amazing potential to either bridge the gap between two shores, make it wider, or at least make a comment on the current state of affairs. In a more aesthetic vein, the view of the eastside from downtown is distinctly lovely and full of personality. Can a new, better designed, and more engaging park add to the basic aesthetic potential of this area?

GOALS: To create a dialogue between the designer, the public, and the natural forces within my site. To build in a way that encourages the public to interact with the site in a direct and communal manner, thus establishing meaningful place. To challenge landscape as land-escape, and convert a site which is essentially a bridge into a place of interaction and creation.

THE CREATION OF A POETIC DIALOG

Appropriation, Improvisation, Reinvention

1- Appropriation (done by the designer)

- Site analysis through poetry, form building, drawing

- sampling and pastiche (as related to culture, formal elements, environmental elements). The current design of the park can be seen as an exercise in sampling gone terribly wrong.

- Envisioning new story lines

By changing its stories, or frameworks, a society imagines its futures. In face of urban violence it is possible to imagine a city of conviviality, in which the built environment is determined bypatterns of sociation which accommodate difference, rather than one in which the environmentdetermines the sociation it contains. In the latter case, of course, it is the structures of powerand value through which the built environment takes its particular form which are the determining factors, mediated by decisions of planning and so forth. Imagining a convivial, or sustainable, city entails a reformulation of the aesthetic, or beauty, as something integrated in and expressing the possible fulfilment of everyday life, not something outside it acting like an opiate. – Malcolm Miles, from “Strategies for the convivial city.”

- Creation of spatial relationships based on rhythm, cadence, narrative flow (build up, climax, etc.)

2- Improvisation (Allowing the public and the natural world to do their thing and appropriate the site in their own way)

3- reinvention (resulting from the work of the designer, the results of improvisation, and the resulting dialog)