A Daily Dose of Poetry in Rye

“Poetry has the power to turn something inside out or upside down and make people think about things in a new way,” says Amy Vijayanagar, founder of Rye Poetry Path.

Beginning this month, this public art project will display 82 poetry installations at four locations throughout the City of Rye – Rye Town Park, Rye Nature Center, Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary and the Knapp House.

“The nature of this project is that people discover it on their own. It’s something that’s just there for people to come across and engage with in their own way.”

While the project is a brainchild of Vijayanagar, she says the development of it has been a purely collaborative effort among people in her community – including the local school, nature preserve, art center, library and historical society.

Iain Haley Pollock, the outgoing English Department Chair at Rye Country Day School, is the project’s Poet-in-Residence. Come July, he’ll also be Director of the Graduate Creative Writing program at Manhattanville College. Pollock explains that people often turn to poetry to mark milestones or console themselves in hard times, but “this project…makes a case for the benefits that a daily dose of poetry can have in our lives.”

As such, the Poetry Path came about after Vijayanagar was thinking about “the context of the world we’re living in – the pandemic, climate change, issues related to race – and how powerful poetry can be.” The poems address three central themes: conservation, social justice and community.

Based on the themes, Pollock curated the poem selection process, spending hours at each location, making expert suggestions, and meeting with a team from each venue to help them choose individualized poems for each available spot.

Each venue had a slightly different approach. For Edith Read and Rye Town Park, the teams considered where people stop and gather, and places of interest. Rye Nature Center wanted the poems to appear on trails that are less visited; a way of encouraging people to explore the grounds. The poem at Knapp House was chosen based on its historical context.

In fact, history played a significant role overall, as a goal of the project was to include poets and poetry with a connection to Rye. For instance, two Native American poems are featured, which Vijayanagar says Pollock and RHS’s Director of Education Alison Relyea, spent a substantial amount of time selecting: “A lot of work went into figuring out how to best represent the native communities that were here before us. ”

Another historical example is the placement of Lucille Clifton’s Atlantic is a Sea of Bones. “The Historical Society found that a ship came into Rye and smuggled in a group of slaves. There’s a whole history there that should be known and discussed.” RHS collaborated to provide an educational sign that explains the poem’s context.

But it wasn’t only the venues that partnered to make the project a reality. For one, the Rye Free Reading Room is hosting and creating the website.

Rye Arts Center (RAC) “was a natural fit” for taking on the design component. This was no small task, as each installation is unique, including laser-engraved metal, etching on stone, painted wood and more. Signs were created at RAC, by local artists, as a multi-disciplinary STEAM project for students at Rye Country Day School, and outsourced specialists. RAC will be managing a call for artists for several poems that lend themselves to mural or sculpture.

Vijayanagar wants the Path to be used in any way the community sees fit: “The point was to put something in our public spaces that anybody can use going forward. Whoever wants to use it can go for it.” She hopes that “wherever a person is in their life, the poetry will offer them what they need.”

Pollock adds: “Poetry can help us, in our hurried lives, to slow down…Its observations of the human and natural world can help us better understand ourselves and bind us together with those around us.”

A version of this article first appeared in the April 2022 issue of ArtsNews, ArtsWestchester’s monthly publication. ArtsNews is distributed throughout Westchester County. A digital copy is also available at artsw.org/artsnews.

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More National Poetry Month News & Events

City of Yonkers Appoints Its First Poet Laureate; Westchester Poet Laureate BK Fischer Nominated for Prestigious Award; Plus a list of April poetry events in Westchester.

About ArtsWestchester

For more than 50 years, ArtsWestchester has been the community’s connection to the arts. Founded in 1965, it is the largest private not-for-profit arts council in New York State. Its mission is to create an equitable, inclusive, vibrant and sustainable Westchester County in which the arts are integral to and integrated into every facet of life. ArtsWestchester provides programs and services that enrich the lives of everyone in Westchester County. ArtsWestchester helps fund concerts, exhibitions and plays through grants; brings artists into schools and community centers; advocates for the arts; and builds audiences through diverse marketing initiatives. In 1998, ArtsWestchester purchased the nine-story neo-classical bank building at 31 Mamaroneck Avenue which has since been transformed into a multi-use resource for artists, cultural organizations and the community. A two-story gallery is located on the first floor of ArtsWestchester’s historic building on Mamaroneck Avenue. artsw.org