Published on April 8, 2024
Originally reported in Northwest Asian Weekly by Kai Curry.
National Poetry Month takes place every year in April. Its purpose is to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry nationwide. This year, Seattle residents will have the privilege and pleasure of discovering, installed throughout various parts of the city, poems by local poets on topics of place and sustainability. Organized by Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai, the poetry campaign, called “Poetry in Place,” began April 1, and highlights the work of five Seattle poets. The poems will be viewable from the street, at no cost, from Little Saigon to Greenwood.
At each location, there will be a guide to the campaign map of installation sites, along with complementary posters and postcards (while supplies last). Pai and the participating poets encourage citizens to re-display and re-post the poems, in person or online, to their heart’s content. The artwork to accompany each poem, such as font choices, and overall installation considerations in cases where the poems do inhabit a larger space, were created in collaboration with Taiwanese American graphic designer and University of Washington teacher Jayme Yen.
Yen has been known to the public in recent years as the co-organizer of the Seattle Art Book Fair.
“It’s important for me to highlight and work with Asian American artists and creatives,” Pai told the Asian Weekly. “[Yen’s] work as a designer is really next level.” Each poet and their poetry was given personalized consideration by Pai and Yen when deciding how to display their words. For instance, for the poem to be placed in Little Saigon, Yen chose a specific typeface that was designed by a Vietnamese typeface designer.
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National Poetry Month takes place every year in April. This year, Seattle residents will have the privilege and pleasure of discovering, installed throughout various parts of the city, poems by local poets on topics of place and sustainability. Organized by Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai, the poetry campaign, called “Poetry in Place,” began April 1, and highlights the work of five Seattle poets. The artwork to accompany each poem were created in collaboration with Taiwanese American graphic designer and University of Washington teacher Jayme Yen.