When I was an undergrad many years ago my favorite expression with friends was, “Let’s go paint the town red” and red we did paint wherever we ended up. We were in touch with the spirit of freedom, a little bit of anarchy and tons of creativity. College, especially, inspired that kind of liberty. Imagine this: You’re away from home perhaps for the first time, living with roommates instead of siblings, you’ve dropped subjects you didn’t like in high school, you’re doing and studying what you love, hopefully, and you’re magically and beautifully coming into your own, independence! Now that I’m on the “other side,” I like to occasionally see such bouts of freedom/play among groups of students on campus.
Imagine my pleasant surprise when the Humanities 214 students with the support of their professors decided to paint the UNCA Quad poetry. Not red, not blue, not yellow, not purple… but all the above and much more in lines of poetry. The poetry is still hanging out in the Quad, so to speak, and it’s really monumental. It provides a welcome break moving from one cloth to another, and to me it’s a good demonstration of making poetry fun. For students it’s sharing and doing something with their time on campus, playing seriously so to speak, because there’re other avenues and modes of expression they could be engaged with but– poetry!
I’ll share some pictures I’ve taken and the ones that have given me much delight are waving and flapping gaily in the wind. Visit the Quad and enjoy.
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