Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2006SYR04
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Humid Moon Rises
poster information
Description
Humid moon rises
over the stopped clock tower
like a real city
I wrote this a couple of years ago at Clinton Square. It was one of those hot summer nights when you jump in the fountain, and everyone else is in the fountain. It felt exciting. Like when you get to Manhattan, and you're, like, “Ooo! I'm in the city!”
It's the way the buildings were lit up, and the way everybody was playing in the fountain. Those are beautiful buildings. And there's something about the Gridley Building, with its stopped clock, that endears me.
Do you remember the film, It's a Wonderful Life, where Jimmy Stewart keeps going down the stairs, and the banister comes apart? And each time he gets pissed off, but in the end he's so happy to see the banister come apart, because he knows he's home. It's kind of like that: Old silly stopped clock tower.
At first I thought the poem was referring to that digital clock that's really high, with red lights on it. Then I drove around the city a million times and found the other clock tower overlooking Clinton Square, and decided it was most definitely the clock tower the poet was talking about. It's much more interesting than the digital one.
I photographed it during the day, to get the details, and then at night to get the color. Then I combined those pictures on the computer and stretched the buildings to make them look taller.
When I think of a “real” city, I think of huge buildings. So I wanted them to look massive and all-encompassing.
I wanted you to look at my piece and say, “Oh, that's a beautiful city—I wonder what city it is?” And then be surprised: “Oh, it's Syracuse!”