Student poetry/artwork pairing at Johnson Museum gives unique view of New York City

A new exhibit at the Johnson Museum offers a different view of New York City, pairing poetry and artwork in "The2NakedGuysCollective -- New York City Poetry & Prints."

The exhibit is a student project inspired by the spring 2010 course "New York, Paris, Baghdad: Poetry of the City," taught by Shawkat M. Toorawa, associate professor of Near Eastern studies. The class met in the Two Naked Guys Café in the Johnson Museum (hence the exhibit name) for coffee before reading works from a wide range of poets, some of whom are collected in the anthology "I Speak of the City: Poems of New York."

The anthology did not impress the class, according to Toorawa, and the students decided to produce a more inclusive collection. They jointly selected 54 poems about New York City for their project. At the suggestion of Toorawa and Johnson Museum Director Frank Robinson, the students then turned their anthology into the "New York City Poetry & Prints" exhibit, selecting artwork from the museum's collection to accompany each poem.

"This project represents a wonderful example of the kind of thing that can happen at Cornell," said Toorawa. "It is our hope that the juxtapositions of word and image, and their interactions in the gallery space, will provide readers and viewers with new ways of thinking about both the poems and the art."

English graduate student Natalie Yasmin Soto likened the launch of their class exhibit to moving through a crowded New York City subway train. People reading the poems aloud to themselves created a murmur of poetic voices like the conversations of subway passengers, she wrote in an e-mail. "It is this feeling -- of fragmentation, of shared space, of unity, of distance -- that I think makes the exhibit so successful."

"It's quite gratifying to see the fruits of our enthusiasm and collaboration manifested in this way," Soto continued, "and I still have my fingers crossed that we'll have the opportunity to see our full anthology in print."

The exhibit opening was one of a series of events April 12 that included a book launch of Toorawa's co-edited "Islam, A Short Guide to the Faith"; a special museum-focused session of "The dr. T projecT: a cornell hiTchiker's guide to culTure"; and "Poetry and Pastry: Readings of Near Eastern, Francophone and World Poetry."

The "New York City Poetry & Prints" exhibit will run through April 21.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.

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