Poster Image

A boy skateboards down an empty street

$20

Item#: 2011SYR15

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

Skateboarding “M” Street

poster information

Description

Skateboarding “M” Street
Past souvenir shops, bookstores
Orange and blue a blur

The first time I ever wrote poetry was for a haiku contest. I was fortunate to receive first prize. Now when I want to edit other writing I've done, I return to the structure of haiku. It creates a narrow focus for the core of my idea and that conveys meaning to the reader.

“M” Street has always been the center of activity. It looks like great fun for students to zip down the street, carry their skateboards into Cosmos and hop back on them when they are ready to go. I can see the orange and blue colors “flash” down the street.

What inspires me is the emerging technology of the last ten years. When I was nine, I saw a book with the concept art for Star Wars. The drawings got turned into a character on the screen. They actually influenced people — and that's what I want to do.

I usually draw everything in pencil, then work in digital media. I made that transition my junior year, going from traditional media to digital.

I selected this haiku because the idea was eye catching. It had energy. It was more important to incorporate the colors — you see a lot of orange and blue on Marshall Street — than it was to make a photographic representation. I did about ten versions. The hardest part is capturing what the poet wrote in three lines and making a visual representation of it.