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Why does Metro send its Poetry on Buses work to the rear of the coach?
Photo by Jon Vachon |
Harried and half-awake commuters, kids on their way downtown, people bundled up and slumped over, going nowhere all night: if they’re not plugged into earphones, if they don’t have some reading material, they can at least look out the window. Or scan the overhead signs: Ride Right, Operator of the Year, See Something? Say Something. Or the several poems solicited by the county and posted in each coach. If you’re sitting in the right place.
Because the poems, with rare exceptions, ride in the back of the bus.
It’s official policy by Metro: paid advertising goes up on the left side of the coach, the rules, employee of the year posters, and other in-house signs — including the works of citizen poets selected in the biannual Poetry on Buses program — go on the right side of the coach.
But Metro’s policy is to put the poems in the back, past the rules, behind the coach’s back door.
Why does poetry ride in the back of the bus?
It’s nothing personal, Metro spokesperson Linda Thielke says; rules should go up front so that drivers can reference them when dealing with unruly passengers. The placement “makes it a little easier for refreshing things,” she says, since the other signs are changed out more frequently.
The private-public county arts commission 4Culture, which put on the poetry selection process annually until 2005, when it was scaled back to every other year, has also noticed the verses’ rear-of-the-coach consignment. 4Culture spokesperson Lara Holman Garritano says the group plans to bring up the placement with Metro. Garritano notes that a few coaches are filled with all 55 poems from the current selection — 55, she says, because that’s the number of poetry placards that can fit on a typical coach.
She says the number of poems chosen next round may be revised upward; in the last round, 4Culture got 3,000 submissions, more than twice the number of the previous year. Changing the poetry selection process to biennual was a result of staffing shortages, she says: “It got to the point where there was a lot of labor involved, staff was finishing it and starting the next immediately.” Now, because they ride for a full two years, the process “gives the poems a little bit more life on the bus.”
As to the rear placement: “I don’t think it’s intentional,” says Garritano.
Cody Walker has also noticed the poems’ placement in the back of the bus. Walker was elected the city’s Poet Populist last August; he’s also a part-time instructor at the University of Washington, a Writer in Residence at Richard Hugo House, and a creative writing teacher at two local schools. One of his poems was accepted in the 2007 on-board collection, “Dreams.” As was one by a younger student for whom English is a second language.
Is it demeaning to consign the poems to the back of the bus? “I certainly haven’t thought of it that way,” he says. “I just honestly haven’t thought about it.” |
