Who?
Two wonderful anonymous poets
Where?
San Francisco, California
What?
"No way! My friend and I had a similar idea- awesome work, guys! I love the way you put it into action and that people come up with the same things simultaneously, being 6000 miles away from each other! Also I dig your handwriting. The words look really, really beautiful."
How did he react?
Grinned. Said: "Thank you!"
How did I feel?/What is the story?
I know I officially landed in Denmark the day before yesterday, but let me take you back to San Francisco. I have to. Because there are three more creative compliment candidates there who I want to document. Number one and two: The muddy waters word gamers. Sitting in one of my favorite coffee shops in the city night after night they write words on tape and put them on walls and the Valencia street pavement. Every letter is carefully painted. These two make handwriting look like calligraphy rather than a dying form of communication in digital times...
Two wonderful anonymous poets
Where?
San Francisco, California
What?
"No way! My friend and I had a similar idea- awesome work, guys! I love the way you put it into action and that people come up with the same things simultaneously, being 6000 miles away from each other! Also I dig your handwriting. The words look really, really beautiful."
How did he react?
Grinned. Said: "Thank you!"
How did I feel?/What is the story?
I know I officially landed in Denmark the day before yesterday, but let me take you back to San Francisco. I have to. Because there are three more creative compliment candidates there who I want to document. Number one and two: The muddy waters word gamers. Sitting in one of my favorite coffee shops in the city night after night they write words on tape and put them on walls and the Valencia street pavement. Every letter is carefully painted. These two make handwriting look like calligraphy rather than a dying form of communication in digital times...
I had seen their work on the pavement almost every day. On my last night in the Bay I ran into them and was stoked to tell them I loved their idea- and that David and I had come up with almost the same thing! They took the compliment super well, we joked around and I told them about our idea: We call it pombing, poetry + bombing. It is simple: Grab some duck tape and a permanent marker. Write down a poem. Wrap it around a city lantern, diagonally moving downward, creating a spiral like form.
This way you add a choreography: Stick around and you will catch strangers performing a limbo and getting a drehwurm (feeling giddy), trying to read the whole thing. So maybe pimbing (Pimp my city: Poetry limbo bombing!) instead of pombing?
Or randometry (because the poem's words are randomized if you stand still and read down, looking from only one angle only)?
Whatever you call it is my first move in street art! I am absolutely thrilled. Unfortunately putting up posters (and, I suppose, duck taping lanterns and bus stops) is an infringement in Germany. But the craziest thing happened today: Guess what, on my way home from school I saw my favorite German poem - twice!- pombed, or pimbed, on Berlin grounds. What a coincidence! Crazy, right...? Erm... yeah. Whoever did it must have read my and David's minds. Or been there during our giving birth to the idea of poetry bombing...Or... Well. Obviously, I would not know. For some reason, there was this blog's address added to the poem. Weird, huh? Anyways, what I did know was how to stop and take pictures.
The second pimb pomb I came across was at a bus stop. With the duck tape running around the whole glass box reading the poem encourages you to walk. So this kind of pombing is a 4-for-1 deal: Waiting for the bus you
1) enjoy art
2) educate yourself in literature
3) work your core (by bending backwards)
4) do cardio (by walking around the bus stop)
...And this is how pombing turns into fit-pombing :D! Fimbing-..?
Ok enough. Here is proof of my found:
1) enjoy art
2) educate yourself in literature
3) work your core (by bending backwards)
4) do cardio (by walking around the bus stop)
...And this is how pombing turns into fit-pombing :D! Fimbing-..?
Ok enough. Here is proof of my found:
Now I am not inciting anyone to commit a crime such as pi-po-pambing. How could I. But imagine any city to be more beautiful, alive and inspiring if anyone who felt the call pombed their favorite poem.
After all this project right here is partially about moving people in the midst of their every day life, touching them when they least expect it- on the street- by mirroring their own beauty and pointing it out to them through a compliment.
So if it is all about moving others and ourselves- which for me it is oftentimes- then let me ask you this: What if your favorite poem moved someone else, brought them to tears or made them laugh or think or...-? A complete stranger, or maybe your neighbor - who, in a city like Berlin probably ends up being the same person anyways, because honestly, who really knows their neighbors?
I am not saying: Do it. Go pomb. No way! I am just saying: I would love that.
Speaking of which here is another thing I am not saying:
I am so curious about ways to improve that idea! Best spots, originals (= the pomber's own words) or, ha!- a group poem! One could leave a pen next to the tape spiral. And start with something. One word, to words, a phrase. Then leave it up to the next person to continue. What should we call that? Wait... Communal poetry bombing. Right- That must be... combing.
;)
Anything else?
Here is my favorite poem for you:
Die frühen Jahre (Mascha Kaleko)
Ausgesetzt
In einer Barke von Nacht
Trieb ich
Und trieb an ein Ufer
An Wolken lehnte ich gegen den Regen
An Sandhügel gegen den wütenden Wind
Auf nichts war Verlass
Nur auf Wunder
Ich aß von den grünenden Früchten der Sehnsucht
Und trank von dem Wasser, das dürsten macht
Ein Fremdling, stumm, vor unerschlossenen Zonen
Fror ich mich durch die finsteren Jahre
Zur Heimat erkor ich mir die Liebe.
I will translate that one soon!
After all this project right here is partially about moving people in the midst of their every day life, touching them when they least expect it- on the street- by mirroring their own beauty and pointing it out to them through a compliment.
So if it is all about moving others and ourselves- which for me it is oftentimes- then let me ask you this: What if your favorite poem moved someone else, brought them to tears or made them laugh or think or...-? A complete stranger, or maybe your neighbor - who, in a city like Berlin probably ends up being the same person anyways, because honestly, who really knows their neighbors?
I am not saying: Do it. Go pomb. No way! I am just saying: I would love that.
Speaking of which here is another thing I am not saying:
I am so curious about ways to improve that idea! Best spots, originals (= the pomber's own words) or, ha!- a group poem! One could leave a pen next to the tape spiral. And start with something. One word, to words, a phrase. Then leave it up to the next person to continue. What should we call that? Wait... Communal poetry bombing. Right- That must be... combing.
;)
Anything else?
Here is my favorite poem for you:
Die frühen Jahre (Mascha Kaleko)
Ausgesetzt
In einer Barke von Nacht
Trieb ich
Und trieb an ein Ufer
An Wolken lehnte ich gegen den Regen
An Sandhügel gegen den wütenden Wind
Auf nichts war Verlass
Nur auf Wunder
Ich aß von den grünenden Früchten der Sehnsucht
Und trank von dem Wasser, das dürsten macht
Ein Fremdling, stumm, vor unerschlossenen Zonen
Fror ich mich durch die finsteren Jahre
Zur Heimat erkor ich mir die Liebe.
I will translate that one soon!