Poetry everywhere

One of my soap boxes is more poetry in public art, more Poetry AS Public Art, more poetry taken to the public. Paul Magee told of poetry projected on the sides of large buildings in Mexico at the recent Canberra Spring Poetry Festival, suggesting Canberra would be ideal. Believe it or not I had this idea myself, also with an eye on the many public buildings in Canberra. I was inspired by Electric Art where public buildings are flooded with colour during festivals and a public artwork in Canberra's Civic which involves green electronic lines, patterns and text - I'll look up the title and artist. Why not electronic or projected poems I thought. I stumbled on another idea recently online. The Shreve Memorial Library in Shreveport LA has been running the Electronic Poetry Network, edited by Carlos Colon, since 1997. Selections are made from small poems submitted from all over the world for Poem of the Day displayed on an electronic notice board on the library's first floor and also posted on its website. The six poems for this week are by Sandra Simpson of New Zealand but google in quickly as they will be replaced on Monday. This is a terrific project with great scope I think and I congratulate Colin and the Shreve Library. I would really like to see selected poems archived on the website with poet's biographical notes - what a resource that would be. In the meantime a list of poet's names and locations would be very interesting indeed and a long term acknowledgement of the poets' involvement.