Mapping our community with poetry
Submission deadline April 2
Help us map our place
How do we understand where we are in a world that stretches far beyond our view? Maps provide the perspective we need to see beyond our own horizons or experiences. Nearly 50 years ago the Museum of Northern Arizona oversaw a massive project to create a geologic map of the Grand Canyon that helped geologists, river rafters, and canyon fans understand the layers of time revealed in the rock. An exhibition is in the works to share the story of the Grand Canyon Dragon Map this spring.
As we work on that exhibition, we invite the community to help us create a different kind of map, one that will reflect the connection between people and place. We have selected 30 pieces of art from the museum collection and invite you to send in short poems to accompany these images. In April up to 26 poems will be selected by a panel of professional poets and printed along with the art. Selected poems will be placed in an outdoor installation at the museum during the ArtX festival, creating another kind of map you can stroll through. The poems and art will also be placed on the Mountain Line buses and at locations throughout the community.
Poetry has a powerful capacity to evoke particular places, to inform us of their meanings, and to ground us in them regardless of whether we know them or not. While the visual artist describes a place with color and lines, the poet plays with a palette of words. The goals of Poetry Maps are to bring poetry and art into daily life, to connect people to places on the Colorado Plateau and celebrate the personal/universal experiences of this area.
“Poems of place contain the psychological and geographic maps we make of the worlds we know, think we know, and those we remember,” wrote poet KC Trommer.
Owen Sheers in his essay “Poetry and Place: some personal reflections” suggests that: “A poem, like landscape, situates us by translating the abstract world of thought and feeling into a physical language.”
Or, as Wendell Berry put it “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.”
Let us, together, map the Colorado Plateau through words, memories, and musings.
Entry Guidelines:
- All entries must be original
- Each entry may not exceed 10 lines maximum
- Writers may submit up to three poems.
- Poems must be suitable for a general audience (no profanity)
- Specify which piece of art you feel each poem goes with
- Poems will not be returned
- Submissions must be received by 11:59 pm on April 2, 2024
- Entries should be emailed to comment@musnaz.org
- Entries can also be dropped off at the Museum front desk between 10 am – 5 pm
- Entries may be mailed to Poetry Maps at MNA, 3101 N. Fort Valley Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86001. If mailed, entries must be postmarked by March 29, 2024
- Due to volume considerations, a literary panel may pre-screen entries
- We reserve the right to match a poem with a different piece of art if needed
- Winners will be notified by mid-April 2024
- Winners will be invited to participate in a reading of the poems at MNA on May 18, 2024
For more information or if you have a location that would like to post one of the poems, email khutchison@musnaz.org
If you are looking for feedback as you work on crafting your poem, consider joining the MNA Writer’s Group, which meets on Zoom on alternating Wednesdays. Contact khutchison@musnaz.org
Teachers
Consider using the Poetry Maps as a class project and submitting the finished poems on behalf of your class. Education Manager Sacha Siskonen is developing several lessons that can be used with Poetry Maps. Those will be available for download from this page soon or email her at ssiskonen@musnaz.org
Further Inspiration
You might have a poem already that just needs to be crafted to fit the guidelines, or some musings in a journal that are ready to be turned into a poem. You may be inspired by one of the pieces of art. Or you may find the following writing prompts help a poem develop.
Directions: Give someone directions to or through the place. How will they recognize the destination? What should they watch out for? What are the most prominent features?
En Plein: Painters often go to a place to paint en plein air. Writers also find inspiration by visiting a location. Go to the place pictured, or one like it, and experience it. Take a journal to make notes. What do you notice? What do you think? What do you know? How is being in the place different than looking at the painting?
Memory: Write down any memories you have of the place or that it reminds you of. Use specific details.
Natural forces: How was this place formed? What were the forces that shaped it? What does it tell you about the past? When you think about all that this place has been through, how do you feel?
Where I’m From: Listen to George Ella Lyon read Where I’m From. Using the starting phrase “I am from…” create a series of sentences that tap into the concrete details of your life and experience.
Imagination: Things you imagine or wish related to a place. What would you do if you could go there? Use these lists to inform your poem.
Senses: List sensory details and feelings about the chosen place. If you were there, what would you see, smell, hear, feel, and taste?
20 Questions: Looking at the image, quickly list questions about it. When you get beyond the obvious questions, you may find a poem, if not in the questions themselves, then by trying to answer them.
Home Planet: Imagine you are from another planet, stuck on earth and longing for home. Or that you are on another planet, remembering Earth.
Tourist: Imagine someone visiting from out-of-town who is complaining about this place. Respond to them with three things you think are wonderous about the place and some advice for the visitor.
Signs of the Times: How has a place you are familiar with changed over the past 10 years?
The Artist: Have an imaginary conversation with the artist. What do you imagine about the artist from the painting? What were they thinking or feeling? What would you say to them or ask? What would they say to you?