Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2022SYR08
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
From the Past they Speak
poster information
Description
From the past they speak.
We can hear the stories told.
Their memory stays.
I sent in haiku to the Poster Project for the last few years and was thrilled that mine was one of the ones selected this year. What doubled the thrill was the fact that it was the “Spirit of Ancestral Guidance” that won.
My children are the fifth generation to live here on our little farm in Parish in rural Oswego County. Both sets of my grandparents and my paternal great grandfather came from a part of Austria which is in present-day Ukraine. I can't imagine leaving my home at such a young age to move to another city, never mind another country across the ocean.
I loved hearing the stories and it gives me chills to think that I walk on the ground here that they walked on and touch things in the house, barn, and other buildings that they touched. I think that was very inspiring that they opened this year's contest with the “spirits” theme. Thank you to everyone involved for giving me the opportunity to honor my ancestors!
I live near Oakwood Cemetery, often walked in the cemetery, and listened to the wind and crows. I read each tombstone I passed by, guessing the life story behind each line and date. Then, the cemetery became a realm of the past. The haiku I chose reminded me of such a feeling.
To me, history is a river with millions of souls and lives, a tree that lives with countless seasons. The leaves in Oakwood Cemetery are similar every year, just like how they were hundreds of years ago. The weeds grow on the old, high monument.
People come to the cemetery for memory. It is a place where we can enjoy the present with people in the past.