Literary Documentary
https://www.minneapolisparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Phase-1-Community-Engagement-Part-2.pdf
Among the ripples following George Floyd’s death in 2020 has been the unfolding of a veiled history about purposeful inequities in the state’s much-lauded park system. These parklands have a history of exclusion in which “green space” is often “white space.” Local governing entities have called for community collaborative responses to these critiques, intentionally including artists in outreach efforts. This past year, the Witness Project undertook to compile a “literary documentary” of several regional parks, interrogating the past, present, and future of the parks through a literary lens -- not as a conventional work of nonfiction, but using the sensory lenses, intuition, and imagination of the poet. As lead artist, I curated a compilation of essays and poems about the parks which was then presented to the Minneapolis Parks & Rec Board as evidence of important perspectives on the parks in community voices.
A grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board will enable me and other local writers to compose more hybrid poems/essays about "green spaces" and "white spaces" in or near North Minneapolis in 2022. Less.....
https://www.minneapolisparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Phase-1-Community-Engagement-Part-2.pdf
Among the ripples following George Floyd’s death in 2020 has been the unfolding of a veiled history about purposeful inequities in the state’s much-lauded park system. These parklands have a history of exclusion in which “green space” is often “white space.” Local governing entities have called for community collaborative responses to these critiques, intentionally including artists in outreach efforts. This past year, the Witness Project undertook to compile a “literary documentary” of several regional parks, interrogating the past, present, and future of the parks through a literary lens -- not as a conventional work of nonfiction, but using the sensory lenses, intuition, and imagination of the poet. As lead artist, I curated a compilation of essays and poems about the parks which was then presented to the Minneapolis Parks & Rec Board as evidence of important perspectives on the parks in community voices.
A grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board will enable me and other local writers to compose more hybrid poems/essays about "green spaces" and "white spaces" in or near North Minneapolis in 2022. Less.....
