Toronto poetry map reveals an inner world
Online tool links the city’s neighbourhoods to verses that were written about them
Finding true love on the beach Exploring the city within arm’s reach Complaining about the TTC All on a map of Toronto poetry
While the long winter has many of us feeling uninspired, a digital map unveiled by the Toronto Public Library suggests that for local poets, the opposite is true.
The Toronto Poetry Map is a collection of poem excerpts referencing various parts of the city. Click on a neighbourhood and verses written about the area will pop up, along with links to the books in which they were published.
Some of the prose is quite literal: “Walk on over to High Park, hop the streetcar west. Find a bank by a river if you’re lucky.”
Other verses go deep: “My old lover on the Danforth leaning on a cane, could be getting worse from AIDS, or better from an accident.”
“It really runs the whole gamut of emotions,” says Mary-Beth Arima, an information services librarian at the Toronto Public Library.
Around 200 poems about murder, romance, commuting and just about everything in between are quoted, says Arima.
The project’s purpose is to “bring alive the city, to make people more aware of things that were set in their particular neighbourhoods.”
Toronto’s poet laureate, George Elliott Clarke, spearheaded the map, spending months compiling works from local poets.
He says it’s not surprising that such alarge body of work has been written about Toronto, which he describes as the cultural capital of English-speaking Canada.
“Almost all of us have at one point or another felt inspired to jot down a line or two about the place where we live.”
Many of the poems were written by newcomers trying to navigate the city.
Mississauga resident Anna Yin, 45, started writing poetry after moving here from China in 1999. At first, she says, it was a way for her to improve her English. But quickly, it became “like therapy.”
“It helped me to discover myself, to see my inner world.”
One of Yin’s poems on the map, Toronto, No More Weeping, was written in memory of Cecilia Zhang, a 9-year-old girl who was kidnapped and killed in 2003.
“The whole city at that time tried to look for the girl,” says Yin. “I was so sad and, because I have a child, I thought about my son.”
Longtime Torontonian and writer Karen Mulhallen, who is also featured on the map, says Toronto was a natural muse for her.
“It’s the best city in the world. I can’t imagine wanting to live anywhere else.”
Clarke says he hopes the map will foster an appreciation for the poetry as well as a sense of community.
“As artists we have a role to play in discussing and meditating on what it means to be a citizen of one of the world’s great cities.”