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I thought the list members might like to hear about his. ------------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Michael Evans-Smith, 303-433-4936 October 11, 2000 or Ghada Elturk, 303-441-4941 WORDS OF POETS PAST AND PRESENT ETCHED IN STONE PATH "Poets Way" Dedication October 11 at Boulder Public Library BOULDER--The unveiling of Poets Way, a walkway with the words of some of the world's great poets located at the Boulder Public Library's south entryway was held on Wednesday, October 11, 2000, at 11:30 a.m., when the first four of fifty engraved sandstones were revealed. Related events took place at the Main Library auditorium from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., including video screening, poetry reading, dance, music, and much more. A reception followed. The event was free and open to the public. The sandstones have been engraved, by a process of photo-stenciled precision sandblasting by Great Pane Glass Works, Inc., whose partial client list includes the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Inc.; Carnegie Hall, New York City; Mountain Bell-Denver, Executive Offices; Denver Center for the Performing Arts; and the Tabor Center, Denver. "I regard the Poet as a sentinel warning us against the approach of enemies called Bigotry, Lethargy, Intolerance, Ignorance, Inertia, and other members of that brood." -- Gandhi Project coordinator Michael Evans-Smith said, "We hope that Poets Way will rekindle in those who see it the flame of the imagination. The voices and the footprints of time will be engraved in the sandstones that visitors will walk upon. It will mirror the personalities of poets and will encourage viewers to understand how social, political, and religious issues impact our perception and understanding." The project includes a Teachers' Guide, which illuminates poetry's creative processes and diverse range. It is intended to show that poetry can serve both as a pathway to a clearer vision and a detour from situations that tend to propagate stereotypes. As the Teachers' Guide develops, it will include each poet's biography and the full text of each selected poem in English, its original language, and in Braille. There also will be a reference guide to the major events in the lives of the poets, the key personalities who shaped their works and those artists and writers who have been influenced by them. Michael Evans-Smith notes, "It is our hope that Poets Way inscriptions and accompanying Teachers' Guide will contribute to a poetic revival as their readers rediscover poetry's timeless message. Poetry matters." "What the soul does for the body is what the artist does for the people." --Gabriela Mistral Evans-Smith continued, "Whether you love poetry or have never even been exposed to it, you can still come to Poets Way and leave with a new perspective. Poets Way takes a comprehensive, multiethnic approach across the spectrum of poetry. Poets know that reality is a context made up of moods or recollections joined by chance or design, sets of associations grown over the years, and are often people who have suffered under oppression or written from their own personal experience in secrecy or beneath a willow tree, from a prison cell or beside a creek. ". . . poetry contains both the possibility of a revolutionary morality and what appears to contradict it." -- Jean Genet The Poets Way and Teachers' Guide project organizers, supporters, and volunteers include: Ghada Elturk, Boulder Public Library Community and Cultural Outreach Daniél Escalante The Poets Way Advisory Committee: Mandy F. Yick, Mercia de Reipurth, Sara Elturk, Rachel Harding, Yunn Pann, and Jane Golden Robert Carl Cohen, PEN-Colorado Chapter President Lorajean Current, Boulder Council for International Visitors Naomi Horii, Many Mountains Moving Gandhi-Hammer-King Center Eugene Kim, Duft, Graziano, and Forest, P.C. Daniel Minter Ray Ramirez, Native American Rights Fund Poets Way is dedicated to those who have challenged and helped reshape the prevailing expectations of people everywhere, and especially to the wisdom of those poets who live and work in relative isolation. "The poems are in the scars, and in what I recall of all this, when my hands are too battered to do it anymore." -- Linda Hasselstrom Poets Way and the Teachers' Guide are funded by the Boulder Arts Commission. For more information contact Ghada Elturk, Cultural Outreach Librarian at the Boulder Public Library, at mailto:[log in to unmask] or by calling (303) 441-4941. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%