Lockport Poetry Project Begins As Part Of unLOCK Art Exhibit

LOCKPORT, IL — This spring and summer, visitors can join in for the Lockport Poetry Project. The Lockport Poetry Project is part of unLOCK: Merging Arts and Industry in downtown Lockport. The project will start with a free poetry writing workshop at the White Oak Library-Lockport Branch on April 14 at 11 a.m.

According to a release, project organizer Sam Love will offer a brief overview of the project and lead in poetic games design to spark creativity and unleash unique perspectives of the community, its culture and history. All ages are welcome, 10 years and under accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The project will continue with a second workshop held at the library on May 14 at 11 a.m. Future workshops are planned for the Illinois State Museum on Aug. 26 and Sept. 23; the Gaylord Building; and other sites in downtown Lockport. In all, at least eight public workshops will be held through September.

"I am grateful to have been chosen as one of the ten artists for unLOCK," Love said in a release. "That this historic community has a creative, poetic soul has become quickly apparent during my first visits. I was looking for the right community to continue the 'poetry project' concept we started in Gary and I don't think I could have been connected to a better place."

According to a release, Love is an artist, writer, and community organizer from Gary, Indiana. He is the president of the Calumet Artist Residency and was the co-organizer of the Gary Poetry Project, which collected 1100 lines of verse from residents and visitors to the Steel City at 67 poetry writing workshops and events in 2017. These poems are displayed across the city as public art, ranging from stenciled words on boarded-up buildings, placards on city buses, and a large-scale wheat paste mural-poem featuring every line collected during the project.

The Poetry Project in Lockport will also ask residents and visitors to contribute a line (or more) to a collaboratively written poem that will be displayed as public art.

"We will publish a small chapbook or zine that will be distributed freely around town. Much of the art from the Gary Poetry Project came from immediate need and spontaneity, so of course the same applies here. I've got a few surprises but I am more interested in hearing from the community as to the type of poetic public art they want," Love said in a release.

In addition to attending a writing workshop, people can also participate in the Lockport Poetry Project will submitting a line (or more) at one of the dropboxes stationed across Lockport. Dropboxes are located at the Illinois State Museum, the Gaylord Building and the library. The boxes include submission cards with special prompts.

unLOCK, which is being created and executed by the Gaylord Building, is a citywide multimedia art experience in Lockport and is intended to increase the city's creative and commercial activity and advance local revitalization efforts by using art to galvanize the city's unique heritage.

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