Eclipse Spatial Poetry

Share your creations and poems here! Hereā€™s a map resource: Mexico - USA - 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier

What words on the your local map stand out to you? What questions do you have about the words?

1 Like

The poemā€¦

The LONE STAR of our galaxy
Passing over our varied PINES
And myriad WATERSā€¦
Does this LONE STAR alter the tides?
Throwing shadows over
SAINTS and MONKS and FORTS and PEACE
At the end of SUMMER

The finished projectā€¦

The ideaā€¦
A total eclipse happened in August of 2017 and my library was in the path of totality, so I chose to use a map of that path for this project.
I chose to use this particular map because I really love Congaree National Park and the path of totality (the blue line) lined up fairly nicely with that and a couple of lakes below it.

I looked at the place names and found several groups of similar subject (pine trees, water, saints, etc) and then the town of Lone Star jumped out at me - and since this project was about our sun, how could I not incorporate that??! :slight_smile:
And then I wrote words that connected those concepts together. High literature it is not, but it doesnā€™t need to be!! :wink: I wanted to visually group each of these subjects together as well, hence the yarn and double sided tape.
I kinda want to redo this, but do it as layers. Using the unaltered map as the base and clear plastic sheets with the line of totality, white boxes around each name, and each different subject grouping as their own layers. Perhaps if I find the timeā€¦ (and all the librarians laugh manicallyā€¦) :crazy_face:

Thank you Melissa @LissaMonster for sharing your poem. I love that youā€™ve highlighted all these nature words around you.

The area the Media Lab is in, is very tech-y, and science-y. I circled words I liked, and highlighted all the people names, like who are all these people? I added stickers to be part of the collage, (somehow I associate whales with space) and thereā€™s a fun sticker that looks like galaxy water so I included that too as part of a visual poem!

Hereā€™s my poem:

PENUMBRA, eclipse,
for two hours, twenty three
a BROAD DISCOVERY of
BANANA FABELS in the GALAXY
But OBSCURATION, I
cannot see, 92.567%
hiding behind RAY
AND MARIA STATA,
WALCOTT, LIPCHITZ, SAXON,
MEMORY is MUDDYā€¦
donā€™t go HAYWARD,
go wayward down the TRAILHEAD

1 Like