Josiah McElheny made his artworks currently installed in Madison Square Park with other artists in mind: the green floor is for dance, the blue wall for music, and the red and yellow pavilion for poetry. Each week from mid-June until the beginning of October, an artist (or pair thereof) is in residence in one of these spaces, commissioned variously by the nonprofits Blank Forms, Danspace Project, and Poets House and creating new work with the help of the public.
Tomorrow, poet and book artist MC Hyland launches A Walking Poets’ Library, a kind of laboratory for exploring the connection between walking and writing. Hyland was inspired by William Wordsworth’s long autobiographical poem The Prelude, which he wrote for his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge; she’s since begun penning “walking poems” that begin with a walk between two people. The guiding question for her library at Madison Square Park is: “how can poems be more like conversations?” In an attempt to answer this, the endeavor will feature writing and bookmaking workshops; a site-specific library to which you can submit a book of your own; and walking salons with short talks on Puerto Rico, the rights of ecosystems, and more. It will all culminate in a night of readings throughout the park by those who’ve contributed poems to the library.
A Walking Poets’ Library (photo courtesy MC Hyland)
When: Tuesday, July 4–Saturday, July 8, 11:30am–8pm (full schedule of events)
Where: Madison Square Park (Fifth & Madison Avenues, between E 23rd & 26th Streets, Flatiron District, Manhattan)
More info here.
