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ALTON - The 7th Grade Poetry Foundation is introducing their public art display, a part of their “Poetry Slab” project, in front of the Robert Wadlow statue on College Avenue.
The foundation is a public charity which sponsors a nationwide poetry contest, giving students the opportunity to published. During the contest, it was noticed that several students were presenting forms of visual poetry which helped to start the idea of the “Poetry Slab” project.
“What we learned was some of the kids were using this form of visual, concrete, poetry where the words were being presented in a shape and represented a theme and referencing an object,” Aaron Williams, Founder of the 7th Grade Poetry Foundation, said. “This art display seemed to be the natural evolution.”
The display will feature 20 slabs of concrete with footprints, Wadlow’s size, walking up to the statue with portions poem that send a positive message inside each step, which Williams required a combination of art education and STEM education to create.
“This is engineered poetry,” Williams said. “The amount of math and technology and science that’s behind this just blew my mind. Each footprint will be the size of Wadlow’s shoe and we estimated what his gait would have been. So if you walk the poem actually in the footsteps you’re, as the poem title says, Walking in Someone Else’s Footsteps.”
The Alton display is just the first from the foundation as they plan to spread the “Poetry Slab” project throughout the St. Louis area.
“Everything that is happening here is all positive,” Mayor Brant Walker said. “We will have a wonderful piece of art that’s interactive, celebrates our kids, sends out a positive message and accents upper Alton wonderfully. These type of art projects are done all throughout the county and this puts Alton in forefront of public art and quality of life issues.”
