Mantua – A ribbon-cutting event was held for the first poetry kiosk in Mantua last Friday evening, the first official day of summer. After more than our fair share of rain, the sun shone brightly at the unveiling, which took place at Mantua’s mini-plaza at the corner of Prospect and Main Streets, next to Restoration 44 Coffee Shop.
According to Toomas Tubalkain, Vice President of the Downtown Mantua Restoration Corporation (DMRC), the unveiling of the Poetry Kiosk in Mantua is the culmination of nearly a year of work. “This kiosk celebrates the students of Crestwood and their creativity,” Tubalkain shared. “Their love of the Mantua area is evident in the poem that highlights the things that make Mantua and the Crestwood District such a delightful place to live, go to school and work. These children have made us adults look more closely at our world and appreciate what we have in our community.”
He noted that students in Ms. Jo Cobb’s 3rd grade class composed the poem during a workshop conducted by Charles Malone of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. The poem was illustrated by Emily Grommel through KSU’s Traveling Stanzas program.
Entitled, ‘Our World,’ the poem mentions familiar experiences of summers of youth: bare feet covered in grass, the bang of a baseball bat hitting a ball, swinging through the air on a swing set, and the sounds of bats in the night sky. “It was such a fun job,” beamed Grommel. The recent KSU graduate rushed to Mantua for the ribbon-cutting from her job as a designer at a Cleveland-based advertising agency. “The poem really painted a picture of what it’s like to be a little kid,” she shared.
Traveling Stanzas is a collaboration between Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center and KSU’s Visual Communication Design students to pair poems generated in community writing workshops with graphic designs to disseminated the artwork throughout Northeast Ohio.
Due to a delay in the shipment of key components, the kiosk will officially be installed in early July. The Dominion Energy Foundation, Wick Poetry Center, Benner Construction, and Downtown Mantua Revitalization Corporation provided funding for the project. Mr. Jim Tucker of Tucker Image & Design designed and fabricated the kiosk; Benner Construction will install it.
“Our long term vision is to highlight poetry created by Crestwood students and to have it displayed in public places around town,” Tubalkain explained. “This is the first Poetry Kiosk, but will not be the last.”
