{"id":3161,"date":"2021-11-15T08:59:07","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T13:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=3161"},"modified":"2021-11-15T08:59:07","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T13:59:07","slug":"of-earth-and-sky-and-charlotte-poets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2021\/11\/15\/of-earth-and-sky-and-charlotte-poets\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Earth and Sky and Charlotte Poets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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During the month of October, lines of poetry suddenly popped up in many locations in uptown Charlotte.\u00a0 These poetic snippets were part of a larger multi-media project called Of Earth and Sky.\u00a0 <\/em>The brainchild of British installation artist Luke Jerram, this project originated in the city of Gloucester in the UK in 2020, and it is now touring the world. \u00a0Jerram envisioned Earth and Sky <\/em>as a large-scale poetry installation in which he used lines from poems to form a temporary sculpture trail.\u00a0 For more information about Jerram\u2019s vision for this project, please click on the following link:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.ofearthandsky.co.uk\/ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of Earth and Sky <\/em>made its American debut in Charlotte thanks to Blumenthal Performing Arts.\u00a0 In preparing for the Charlotte version of this project, the project leaders and poetry curators associated with Blumenthal solicited original poems by Charlotte writers and then used lines from these poems for the installation in uptown.\u00a0 Although the installation came down on October 31, 2021, the project lives on in the form of a newly published book titled Of Earth and Sky: Poetry Anthology 2021.\u00a0 <\/em>This anthology includes one poem from each of the 200 Charlotte writers who submitted their poetry to the Of Earth and Sky <\/em>installation project. For more information about the anthology, please click on the following link: https:\/\/ofearthandskyclt.com\/poetry-book\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The anthology begins with commentary by two of the project leaders.\u00a0 Bree Stallings, the Director of Artistic Experiences at Blumenthal Performing Arts, describes that project as \u201ca small moment of escape, a way of looking at our city, and ourselves, differently, and to remember we were all put on this world to draw metaphor where there is fact, and to make special the mundane.\u201d\u00a0 Boris \u201cBuzz\u201d Rogers, the Director of Creative Engagement at Blumenthal Performing Arts, explains that the leaders of this project \u201creached out to the entire city of Charlotte and asked its residents \u2026 to share their stories\u2014stories of hope, happiness, sadness, love, loss and all the in-between.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poems in this anthology are rooted in Charlotte.  The poets touch on the experience of living in Charlotte during this current stressful time in our city\u2019s history.  Some of the poems are deeply personal.  Some capture a special moment in time.  Some are spiritual in tone.  And some are specifically about Charlotte or places in Charlotte.  For example, Jamaal Cowan\u2019s poem, \u201cHeart of the City\u201d is about the experience of sitting \u201cat the corner of Trade and Tryon.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that all of the poets in this anthology rose to the challenge of sharing their stories.  The anthology comes in the form of one 145-page book, but in a sense, it provides 200 glimpses of contemporary life in Storied Charlotte.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the month of October, lines of poetry suddenly popped up in many locations in uptown Charlotte.\u00a0 These poetic snippets were part of a larger multi-media project called Of Earth and Sky.\u00a0 The brainchild of British installation artist Luke Jerram, this project originated in the city of Gloucester in the UK in 2020, and it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[147,225,35],"class_list":["post-3161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-anthology","tag-charlotte-poets","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3161"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3172,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3161\/revisions\/3172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}