A lot of my illustration work deals with history—in this case, history of this park, and what it means to the city. I think the allure of history comes from wanting something you can't have. When I was growing up, finding musical and artistic influence, I was fascinated by people and places of the '60s and '70s, and not so much by things of today, because I'm constantly bombarded by images and sounds of those things.

For the poster, I didn't want to do a photo-realistic painting of the monument. I've been trying to work more conceptually. So I imagined the two poets in a writing room, actually doing work. And since the haiku mentions them overseeing the city, I made a fake town on the desk. Visually, as I was illustrating it, the scene seemed like a game of chess.