Poet's Plaza

One of my favorite chapters in How to Make a Living as a Poet, is on the Poet's Plaza.
I like it because the project started out as an exercise how an architecture class and everyone got so enthused with the idea it ended up being a real flesh and concrete project. Here is the project directors' description of the ground breaking ceremony, which was held on April 22nd.

"I wanted to tell you a sweet little story from the Poets' Plaza groundbreaking. We did all the background and thanks, then Dale Harris read a beautiful poem and then Masood, one of the kids from Escuela del Sol, read one his poems. As we started to scoop up some earth to scatter (with our gold shovel) someone hollered to look into the sky and there was a perfect little rainbow across one of the clouds (someone said it was a sun dog?!?). We scattered some earth, sprinkled flower petals around and lots of folks, little children, parents, poets, artists, and grandparents, wandered in and out of the circle Cassandra (the artist who designed the plaza) traced in the ground. Very lovely. And auspicious, I think." Susan McAlister, Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico

For more info on the Poet's Plaza you can reach her at susanmc@swcp.com