Levee Park
Good neighbors make good fences, the adage goes, and perhaps that applies to Levee Park. The levee, built in response to a devastating flood, holds the river back, keeping the city and its inhabitants from being swept away. Its utility is obvious, but at the same time, it’s a cement wall dividing the town from the river. If you’re downtown looking for river views, you make your way to Levee Park and take the ramp or the steps to the top. Then back down the other side to the dock.
In this place, explore holding back and letting go. Explore moving over barriers. Explore being in a place where people have sought water for hundreds of years.
The Levee Park collection
This is a series of poems written in Levee Park on June 12, 2021. I set up the pop-up Writing in Place poetry booth near the walking path, and I chatted with the dozen or so people who stopped by during the session. A few visitors even took the prompts and writing supplies I’d prepared and went off to write beautiful poems of their own. In between, I wrote, listening to the place and following the threads of ideas that bubbled up. The result is the ten poems below, touching on themes of rest, community, and the river.
The booth: a yard sign, some writing supplies, and rocks to keep everything from blowing away. Behind me, a fence, railroad tracks, a parking lot, and downtown buildings. In front of me, a cement wall, and then the river.
Poem for taking it slow
you do not have to always
be in motion
there is stillness
between gusts of wind
At Levee Park
One of the prompts I created was an invitation for folks to stroll through the park and make a list of what they saw, heard, and smelled. I gave it a try as well.
cement wall
houseboat
fishing boat
beach
towel-flags and leaf-flags
bubble of bird voices
and human voices
rustle, splash, dance
Poem for how we hold on
I set up the pop-up poetry booth beneath a row of shade trees and stared up at them. In the stiff breeze, the leaves rattled and turned over, exposing their lighter undersides.
in a strong wind
I bear witness to the undersides
of leaves:
what is delicate about us
what we rarely show
what happens when we are tossed
and the air the ground the water
heave
and what was once stable—
bottom, top—
is not
we hold on
by these tiny tendrils
How are you poem
One of the gifts of this project has been time for myself as an artist, time set aside and free from distractions. I noticed myself moving in and out of my body and mind, getting lost in thought and then coming back to the park and everything my senses were taking in.
I am here, a little haggard
on the inside, and windswept
but here.
after a week, the heat broke today
and the wind keeps the air alive
I breathe catalpa blossom perfume,
river mud, and whatever gives
warm grass and leaves a scent
that baked summer greenness
Poem for the Mississippi River
Inevitably, sitting next to the river, I wrote a poem for the river. The river is always itself, and it’s also everything we bring to it reflected back to us from the depths. This poem explores that mirror quality.
she is a lively mirror
all mouth and eyes
and I am drawn to her
in sun and fog, heat,
rain, ice.
I put a toe
through the surface
and another leg emerges
beneath—mine and
not-mine.
we dance like this,
toe to toe
Just a thought poem
Sometimes I write down an idea that I think might become a larger poem later, but it ends up staying small. My original idea for torn paper poems was something like this, found fragments that bring a little bit of joy, or a realization, or a memory.
This poem is for everyone who does the messy emotional work it takes to live alongside each other.
some swim deep
in the messiness
like a catfish
diving down
Park poem #1
It’s no secret: I love parks. When I was a kid, we lived a block away from a little park, and we’d roll there on our trikes and bikes to play on the playground, look for turtles in the pond, or fly kites in the big, open field. Now, especially during and after the pandemic, I seek out parks as a place of human connection and community. What are parks to you?
come to the park if you
need some air
want to walk a bit
set your kid loose in an expanse
of grass—
selfies and shade trees
it’s all here
Park poem #2
Now we’re really tunneling into things. This is a prose-poem, a series of things I’m curious about and fascinated by. Things I’d like us to explore as a culture, as a first step toward becoming more welcoming. Admittedly this poem doesn’t feel quite finished, just like the work it points to, but I’m sharing it anyway.
what does it mean for a space to be
public, to be open? how do we behave
in a public space, and how is that
different from how we would otherwise
hold ourselves? is there an audience?
is somebody watching? who feels safe
in a park, and who does not? who lingers
and why? who feels welcome? who
would rather leave?
Park poem #3
how do we imagine
a future together?
that’s the question
on my mind this week
how do we hold each other
with care
so everyone has what they need
and nobody is alone
how do we honor the excitement
of the future without the fear
of it—?
it feels too big
yet it belongs
in the smallest places:
conversations between friends,
meetings by chance,
the discovery of a moment
of peace while walking in the park—
collective hum
and sigh and breath
Here for the carnival and the amen
This is the last of the park series, and one of my favorites from the day.
at the park
we’re here for whatever happens
here for the carnival
and the amen.
we navigate from puddle
to puddle of shade to
trapezoid of sunlight refracted
from a window, double-bright.
it changes every minute
this space we share:
music-and with radio, singing along,
train car clunk
and among and through it all
river mud scent
Prompts from the day
Here are a few invitations to create I shared with passers-by, and used as jumping-off point for my own work. You’re welcome to use them as inspiration for your own visit to Levee Park!
The levee’s utility is obvious, but at the same time, it’s a cement wall dividing the town from the river. In this place, explore holding back and letting go. Explore moving over barriers. Explore being in a place where people have sought water for hundreds of years.
Make a list of 5-7 things you see or hear, then describe them one by one.
Pull three words out of the word inspiration jar (at the table) or a random page of any book, and write a short poem that includes them. Not sure where to start? Try a haiku, a Japanese poetry form that doesn’t rhyme and contains three lines with 5, 7, and 5 syllables.