Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2004SYR04
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Old Canal Waters
poster information
Description
old canal waters
spring anew in my heart at
Clinton Square Fountains
I'm a multi-media artist who creates films, photographs, sound design. But I never wrote haiku until I saw the ad for it in the New Times. Then I remembered, when I was in film school, we learned about this Russian filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein, who wrote about an editing method based on haiku. Like lines of haiku, one scene creates another scene, and they inspire each other. So I thought, This is like filmmaking, I can do it.
I'm interested in local history—the history of the canal, old buildings. I love the city's old buildings. Whenever I see them neglected, somehow it bothers me. I grew up in Korea, and so much of Korea was destroyed during the War. We don't have many old buildings now. You never know how precious they are until you lose them. So when I saw the fountains, they reminded me of the canal and its incredible buried history.
I enjoyed the poet's word choice and thought I was able to capture the mood at the fountains that the poet described. I remember coming to Syracuse my freshman year, and going downtown and seeing the fountains, and thinking what a beautiful space it was, because it was just so vast and open.
Originally, I thought I should incorporate something about the old canal, and how it used to flow through here. Then I thought I would prefer seeing a figure in the present day space, in a thinking pose, contemplating something in front of the fountains. I have her holding a handbag just to show that she's been walking along, and stopped from her everyday routines, in front of the fountains, to take a moment to think. I guess she's contemplating history and the town and how things change and evolve.