Poetry On The (Better) Way
Poetry On The Way continues to be a nice departure on an otherwise mundane Toronto subway/bus ride, offering up a wide variety of poetry to audiences that may instead be using that time to stare at their iPhones or play 'what's that smell'.
This one is entitled Escondido Nights by Jim Christy, who joins a legion of poets whom I haven't heard of until I stopped subway-flirting long enough to look up...
The moon is the shape
Of this hidden cove
fishing boats are constellations
We floated through a heaven
that glittered phosphorescent
like plankton in tinfoil
And paused between a pair:
Aurorita and Viridiana, to thrash about like comets just
Let out of school.
And continued on a light year
later Moondust in my mouth
And all over your body
It's strange that there isn't an official website for Poetry on the Way to be found - nearly a decade after launch. Given the track record of the TTC's marketing efforts, I'm not too surprised.
Between ads with Harry Potter nerds promoting X University and chicks sporting cameltoe urging you to use pay-as-you-go phones, it's a concerted (and appreciated) effort by a few behind the scenes to squeeze in a bit of exercise in free thought and open interpretation - on the way.
Written by guest contributor Justin Gilburd.
Comments (19)
"It's strange that there isn't an official website for Poetry on the Way to be found - nearly a decade after launch."
Sounds like someone needs to start one! ;)
I love Poetry on the Way. It's inspiring and challenging. I also like the mix of poets and poetry.
I like this idea, but why the horrible presentation? The tired looking faded colour scheme in the signage just make people ignore the message... Also, why don't they set up a website for submissions/contributions? Might drive more interest.
i may be the only one who's NOT a fan of poetry on the TTC. i find the choices to be pretentious and horribly written. surely there is better poetry out there??
I've been wracking my brain for years over this one myself. Every single ad the TTC has ever put out has been terrible. The marketing team is probably a handful of ticket collectors who won a raffle, but clearly it's an inside job.
Could they be purposefully trying to downplay their own media to make the third-party campaigns stand out? Then again, that's giving them too much credit. There's a vivid word picture being painted here and someone behind the scenes at TTC had the stroke of genius to represent 'night' with what seems like a moon if it were stretched out of proportion. Masters of the metaphor...
No Dahlia, that's it. If you find their choices pretentious and horribly written, chances are that poetry just isn't for you. But that's OK! We can't all like everything. But do you really prefer the ads for MTV Canada?
Corina, the tired facade probably has something to do with the fact that they don't have a lot of money. That's probably also why they don't have a website.
I don't think they're really concerned about marketing - why waste that space putting up ads to market Poetry on the Way when you could just be putting up poetry?
Also, the TTC doesn't run it. It was actually started by Denis Deneau - you can find his details on the Internet - perhaps you should interview him about Poetry on the Way - he's a really interesting guy.
So I run Toronto Poetry Slam, and was inspired to give the TTC a shout about Poetry on the Way. Never been a huge fan of the poetry they select. Personally, I've seen way better stuff at poetry slams and spoken word shows, by Torontonians no less.
The guy who runs Poetry on the Way doesn't take unsolicited submissions. They contact publishers on their own. Plus (of course) it can't have edgy or horrific content.
In the future, would love to see the poetry reflect the makeup of the poetry scene a bit better. Perhaps consult with a few spoken worders here in Canada. You'd be astounded by the quality of work you could get from artists such as Shane Koyczan, Leviathan, Amanda Hiebert and more.
Um... I can set up a wordpress site for poetry submissions today, for free, in three seconds... and it won't look like something my dog spit up.
Anyway, the only logic I can see in the design is that the downplay does make the poetry on the go ads stand out... you can see the same toned down effect, but frankly done much better (how i hate to admit it) in the new pro-bible ads popping up.
I'll grab a photo on my next commute so we can critique ;)
Corina, that's true. The guy who runs Poetry on the Way is old school - perhaps you should e-mail him and see if he'll take you up on your offer!
I think the design side, which I agree is somewhat dated, is really a matter of finding someone who would do something nicer for free on their own time...
Here's the best poetry I've encountered on the TTC, though it makes no sense whatsoever:
For customer convenience,
please move back
thank you
Some of it ain't so great, but that's the same with everything, right? I like how they don't try too hard to do exclusively contemporary poetry but not 19th century cliches either. I've seen a famous Roman love poem up there, and it was great to know people were reading it.
There's one in circulation now that I really have to take issue with. It's about the grandson or granddaughter of a woman who was sent to Residential School. The second half of the poem is pretty racist toward 'the sons of Columbus' or whatever the phrase is.
It's a good idea, but the selection of the poems is rather terrible. Instead of choosing first rate authors they have settled for third tier authors (wouldn't really call them poets). While I do appreciate that discovering a new unknown poet might be a great thing, why not have the well known authors. Noone buys poetry anymore and having it on a subway system would probably do it some good. If it was first tier authors.
My, my, we are a picky bunch. I do admit it's one of the few 'ads' I'm actually interested to read.
Years ago I read a poem on Poetry Way that literally made me catch my breath. I was taken with it that I missed my stop. Third-tier, middle-brow...I don't know, maybe. But I also don't care.
I love the TTC poetry.
I wish there was more of it!
In fact, I'd love to see a poetry production covert-enacted in the TTC... wouldn't that be cool?
Oh boy, it is a small world:
http://financialtactics.blogspot.com/2009/06/money-poetry-on-way.html
A friend of my son obtained a couple of posters for me (Pat Lowther and Irving Layton), and they are wonderful ('dull' colours and all). I wish I had the Leonard Cohen one as well. But then, "He said to me, 'You must not ask for so much'"... :-)
I'm looking for the name of one of the poems, but I cannot remember the excerpt to google. Anyone know of a website or blog that has them recorded? It was up in June if that helps...
This idea seems so obvious to me, that I am shocked it hasn't been started already:
how about "Art on the Way"
A place to exhibit emerging Toronto artists. Using Poetry on the Way as a platform.
If anyone else is interested in this idea, or foresees any problems that could arise, please email me: nicole.r.dinardo@gmail.com
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