As potential venues for poetry readings go, the city's main bus stop may not seem the most logical choice. But that's why it was the ideal choice, said Brandon Shimoda, who helped organize the reading by 22 young poets and 11 adults.
“This is about making poetry more accessible to people wherever they are,” said Shimoda, a poet and founder of the New Lakes Center for the Arts, a Missoula nonprofit that works to support and expand the local arts community. “Poetry all too often exists on the academic fringes of society. We want to bring it forth into life, combining the everyday with the transcendent.”
Blake Hayworth, a 22-year old Missoula resident on his way to work, was pretty baffled by the whole sight, but said he was enjoying the poems while waiting for his bus.
“It's funny to hear the kids talking about things in their refrigerators and the adults reading poems with all sorts of flowery language,” said Hayworth. “I'm kind of liking the kids' stuff.”
Certainly the audience seemed partial to the younger poets, who had been invited to participate in the project after attending a summer workshop organized by the Missoula Writing Collaborative, a local nonprofit organization. Parents and siblings beamed as children stepped up to read their poems.
Sussex Elementary fifth-grader Soren Temple was the first poet to read for the audience. His mother, Caroline, said her son has been flying high ever since he was asked to contribute a poem to the project.
“He said he felt that it meant he's a real writer,” she said. “I think it's different when somebody else besides your mother tells you that you're a good writer.”
The reading was organized by Shimoda and fellow poet Kisha Schlegel as a kickoff event for Poetry on the Bus, a new program created by New Lakes Center for the Arts in association with the Mountain Line bus system, the Missoula Writing Collaborative, the City of Missoula, Mayor John Engen, and the Montana Festival of the Book.
Through the new program, poems by local students who participate in the Missoula Writing Collaborative's programs are being paired with those from established local poets, and placed on buses in the overhead spaces normally reserved for advertising. Poems will be rotated every three months.
“Putting poems in unexpected spaces like we're doing on the buses can hopefully create moments of interaction with art that are important and meaningful,” said Schlegel. “Mountain Line has been totally supportive of the project, and really everybody involved has just helped this thing come together so easily.”
Ginny Merriam, communications director for Mayor Engen, said the project was a no-brainer for the mayor.
“It's a great way to celebrate one of the best facets of this community, something that we're known for, which is our great community of writers,” said Merriam. “That poetry ought to be shared with as many people as possible, and the bus is just a great place for people to be exposed to that work and to have time to really read it and think about it.”
Friday's reading actually served triple-duty, kicking off the Montana Festival of the Book, the Poetry on the Bus program, and the New Lakes series of poetry readings, which Shimoda has organized since November 2004. Shimoda has made a habit of organizing the public readings at off-the-beaten-track locations, including a ranch up Butler Creek, Gallery Saintonge, the Stensrud Building, and even the backyard of a home in the Rattlesnake.
“It's always been important to me for the experience and the landscape to collaborate with each other,” said Shimoda. “I like seeing how poetry plays out in different environments.”
Reporter Joe Nickell can be reached at 523-5358 or at jnickell@missoulian.com.
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