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.
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