Feature image by City of Edmonton
In 2018, DIALOG Design approached AU Press a unique permissions request. They wanted to reproduce a poem from E.D. Blodgett’s Poems for a Small Park in Morse code solar panels on the atrium of the Edmonton Convention Centre. We got in touch with Blodgett and he agreed, saying it could be an interesting project. Two years later, the installation is complete, and it is stunning.
Poems for a Small Park arose from the City of Edmonton’s commission for the Louise McKinney Riverfront Park in downtown Edmonton. As a part of the park’s design, the poems in this book are engraved on stainless steel plaques attached to lamp posts that light the promenade along the riverfront. E.D. Blodgett talks about the project in a video series shot on location at the park.
Poems for a Small Park is an ode to the wisdom and divinity of silence. The poet muses on the quiet of the outdoors and the mysterious relationship that exists between spaces of silence within a city’s limits. The poem selected for the solar panel installation is “Gifts from a River,” a perfect choice to overlook Edmonton’s spectacular river valley for years to come. A Canadian Architect article about the installation details the sustainable goals of this project.
beginnings just appear
–from “Gifts of a River” by E.D. Blodgett
so like a drowsy eye
suddenly awake
where a river wells up
uncoiling from the ice
where snug beside the land
it lay dreaming at
our feet in quiet sleep
Most of the short lyrics that make up Poems for a Small Park were written first in English and French before being translated into Cree, Michif, Chinese, and Ukrainian to reflect Edmonton’s multicultural past and present. Together they form a composite view of the people and cultures that inhabit the city’s natural spaces.
Blodgett was Edmonton’s Poet Laureate in 2007 and was the author of many books of poetry, including Poems for a Small Park and Praha. He was professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of Alberta, and once held the Louis Desrochers Chair in Études Canadiennes at its Campus Saint-Jean.
AU Press is honoured to have been a part of this project. This installation is a fitting tribute to Blodgett who captured the spirit of Edmonton so beautifully.
