A bard's editor operates with an invalid poetic license
By GIANNA RUSSO
Published September 21, 2003
I was fighting back envy, one of my regular tormentors. Clutching the phone, I'd just heard my longtime friend announce that she and another fellow poet had been selected for a prestigious public arts project. They had been commissioned to compose three poems each for the new trolleys that would soon run the crescent of track through Tampa's historic Ybor City. Carved into the trolley seats, their poems would celebrate the heritage of Ybor City and be a testament to the artistry and renown of both poets for years to come.
As I absorbed the news, I couldn't help begrudging them this honor. They are both poets whom I admire and love, but after all, I was the one among us who had been born and raised in Tampa. It was my family who had operated a business in Ybor City in the 1930s and '40s - a business which still bore the family name. I was the one among us who had served for six years as an artist-adviser to the local arts council. But the public arts department had not even approached me. As I tried to strangle my resentment, my inner voice made a note to self - you are such a jerk. But then, at the same time, I heard myself congratulate my friend, wish her luck, and at that moment I knew I meant it.
A month later. The voice on the phone pronounced my name the Italian way. The voice belonged to an artist, a ceramicist in Denver who was about to undertake an important public arts project in Tampa. She was designing and installing a tile landscape mural on the facade of a new building that was going up. She felt her landscape called for a few poetic lines, and when she was given several names of poets by the arts council, the artist had recognized one with the same ethnic background as her own - a plus, in her mind. A name which belonged to a woman, to boot. My name.
So, was I interested in submitting a few lines for possible inclusion? If my lines were selected, they'd be written in stone, or rather tile, and would adorn the building for as long as it stood. So what if it was a waste management building? She was even able to pay me a hundred bucks. My muses were smiling, and in the back of my brain I reprimanded myself for ever comparing my path to anyone else's, because after all, you just never know what the future will bring.
This is twilight reeling in its fuchsia shadow. That was the line she liked. The check was in the mail. The artist would be in town in a few months for the mural installation, and she hoped I could be there. She had e-mailed me the date.
Shortly after I heard from the artist, my computer broke, and I lost e-mail capabilities. Initially the artist had called me, so I didn't have any contact information for her. I didn't know when the mural was going up; I wasn't even sure where the building was. It took me a while to realize that I could access my e-mail from a computer at the library. When I did, my suspicions were confirmed: I had missed the February installation date. But I got the address of the waste management building. Now I could drive by and see it anytime.
One summer morning, my son and I set out to run errands, and I took along the address of the waste management building just in case. My husband, a great devotee of maps, often chides me for setting off to parts unknown by simply following my nose. So it was that my son and I found ourselves driving aimlessly around downtown Tampa without an air conditioner in 95 degrees, looking for Spruce Street. Spruce Street is nowhere near downtown Tampa, as it was pointed out to me by the third (or was it the fourth?) person I asked, the person who had actually heard of Spruce Street. It's way over by the airport. Too sweaty, we gave in to the heat, gave up, and went home.
Months passed and I still hadn't seen my immortalized words. It was Christmas day and my husband and I had offered to take my sister and brother-in-law to the airport. Later in the day, we dropped them off and suddenly found ourselves in the extraordinary position of being free of any other holiday obligations. We could drive slowly if we felt like it, and just as we meandered out of the airport parking lot, I thought of Spruce Street. My husband, of course, had a street map in the car. There was Spruce Street, just a few blocks over. I vaguely remembered that the building's address was in the four-thousand block. We were now approaching three-thousand - and there the road quit.
A huge pile of debris and dirt loomed behind the detour sign. We detoured, and after a quick left and a right, we saw a low beige building on the next block. Was that it? We drove into the parking lot and there above the double glass doors herons waded in a Florida marsh and spoonbills scouted for supper. The mural on the waste management building was lovely - a full-color depiction of Old Florida.
My husband walked over to one of the tiled concrete pillars. I trailed behind tentatively, eyeing the fern-green background, as small lines of letters sorted themselves out in my vision. There were lines about clean air and blue water written by grade-school children. There was a line about our stewardship of the earth written by a long-gone bureaucrat. And there was my line.
Each letter had its own tile. Each tile was a different shade, so that the whole line progressed through the light spectrum like a rainbow. Each letter was raised in relief, so that my words were three-dimensional, tangible in my hand. The line wrapped itself completely around the pillar, bracing it, girding it, as it were. It was my line, and it would be there longer than I'd be on the planet.
I walked slowly around the pillar, touching each letter like a talisman as I read, This is twilight reeling in it's fuchsia - IT'S? Apostrophe "s"? What? It couldn't be! Apostrophe "s" for the possessive form, the king of my grammar pet peeves, the mistake I always pointed out when we saw it on some business sign as an indication of the owner's mental midgetry or worse, grammatical laziness. Apostrophe "s"! It didn't even make sense. This is twilight reeling in IT IS fuchsia shadow. I knew I didn't write that. But there it was, in three-dimensional tile letters - the apostrophe even had its (Note: no apostrophe) own tile - for all the world, including every poet, English teacher and student I know, to see. Somebody had edited my line. Somebody with bad grammar. It could have been that artist. Everybody knows they're not good at English.
I let the holidays pass before I considered calling the artist in Denver. To do that, I'd have to track down the contact information from the public arts department. I called the city department and took that little opportunity to diplomatically vent my outrage before asking for the numbers. But the receptionist dryly informed me I had the wrong office: I needed the county public arts department.
Determined, I worked my way furiously through the county office's phone tree. I lucked out and one of the top administrators answered the phone. Yes, she knew the mural. No, she didn't have the artist's numbers anymore. She had no idea who could have made such a mistake and when I suggested that maybe my line could be redone, the apostrophe pried out and the "s" tile moved over, I was met with a long sigh. Aaah, she didn't think so. It was virtually impossible. And, sotto voce, she confided that the people at the waste management department wouldn't know the difference anyway.
The computer I'm writing this on still isn't able to e-mail. I put the 100 bucks toward a new printer. I haven't told any of my poet friends about my public arts project. But someday soon, ignoring the snickers of my muses, I'm going to load them all into my un-air-conditioned van and drive out at sunset to see the roseate spoonbills fishing for their supper on Spruce Street.
- Gianna Russo is a poet and creative writing teacher at Howard W. Blake Magnet School of the Arts in Tampa.
