Poems in the Amtrak Station
Beginning in July of 2020, in collaboration with CREATE (Council for Resources to Enrich the Arts, Technology, and Education), we’ve been installing great poetry in the Hudson, NY Amtrak station. Each installation features a set of three placards, which remain on view for two or more months.
2024
From March 2024
This set of Amtrak Poetry placards celebrates three poems and poets published by Nightboat Books: “I will tell an old story of my name,” by Kimberly Alidio, from Teeter; “Lunar Year” by Emily Lee Luan, from 回 / Return; and “Ghosts,” by Assotto Saint, from Sacred Spells: Collected Works of Assotto Saint.
From November 2023
This set of Amtrak Poetry placards celebrates three poems and poets published by Tiger Bark Press: “Mother” from When I Was Water by Deena Linett, “Mirage” from The Foreigner’s Song: New and Selected Poems by Pablo Medina, and “Ode” from Old Horse, What is to be Done? by Stephen Kuusisto.
From August 2023
This set of Amtrak Poetry placards celebrates three poems and poets published by Roof Books: “Afterward” by Eric Hunt (from Local History), an untitled poem by Uche Nduka (from Scissorwork), and “Options” by Bob Perelman (from Jack and Jill in Troy).
From March 2023
This set of Amtrak Poetry placards celebrates three poems and poets published by The Song Cave: “A Carrot” by Alfred Starr Hamilton (from Dark Dreambox of Another Kind), “Justice” by Blanca Varela translated by Carlos Lara (from Rough Song), and a poem from Poetries by George Schehadé translated by Austin Carder.
2022
From November 2022
This set of Amtrak Poetry placards celebrate three poems and poets published by Wave Books: “Scorch Marks” by Dara Barrois/Dixon (from You Good Thing), “I Am Too Much” by Hoa Nguyen (from Violet Energy Ingots),and “Year After Year” by Caroline Knox (from Flemish).
From July 2022
In celebrating a double occasion—the 60th anniversary of the publication of John Ashbery’s seminal The Tennis Court, and what would have been his 95th birthday—we feature three poems from The Tennis Court Oath.
From May 2022
We ease into summer with three poems, all from New Directions, by Nathaniel Mackey (from Double Trio), Susan Howe (from That This) , and Bernadette Mayer. (from Works & Days).
From March 2022
We welcome spring with three poems, all in translation, from these new titles published by Archipelago Books: Allegria—poetry by Giuseppe Ungaretti translated from Italian by Geoffrey Bock, Distant Transit—poetry by Maja Haderlap—translated from German by Tess Lewis, and Diaries of Exile—poetry by Yannis Ritsos translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich and Edmund Keeley.
From January 2022
To help us through the winter, this set of Amtrak Poetry posters features a trio of excerpts from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, a favorite of John Ashbery’s. The posters showcase one selection each from the “Food,” “Objects,” and “Rooms” sections of this seminal work.
2021
From December 2021
This set of Amtrak Poetry posters is just one part of a three-part installation. Hudson youth took part in a writing workshop by Oral History Summer School and Rebecca Borrer to make poems from oral histories from the Community Library of Voice and Sound. Participants include Olivr Rahman, Kameron Clarke, Rafael Rivera, Jaylon Nelson, Naomi Jackson, Kayla Hopwood, Lance Hopwood, Capri Cash McGriff and Gabe Smart. This installation continues in our “Incident Report” windows located at 348 Warren Street, Hudson, NY, and also includes a one-night Tentacle projection from the Hudson Hall opera house onto a white building across the street from it. Find more information on the Incident Report page..
From September 2021
This set comes to us by way of Scottish poet Thomas A. Clark. Tom tells us:
It is the year of the COP climate change conference, taking place in Glasgow, and these texts point out that it is not only about how change affects us, but that it is having a devastating influence on other creatures. We tend to think of species extinction as an unfortunate situation, but it is much more than that. Properly, it should be treated as a crime, on the scale of genocide. My work is intended to address that, in a poetic way rather than sloganising. I should explain that the words are adapted from an old civil rights song sung by Marvin Gaye— “Abraham, Martin & John.”
Poet Thomas A Clark lives in a fishing village on the east coast of Scotland. His work responds to the different landscapes of the Highlands & Islands. In the summer months, with the artist Laurie Clark, he runs Cairn Gallery, a space for minimal and conceptual art.
From March 2021
We welcome spring with a trio of Ashbery poems, all from the 1984 collection A Wave.
From January 2021
This selection of Amtrak Poetry features a trio of poems from Fence 37, Winter 2021: “ساوى” by Siwar Masannat, “Red Bird” by Elizabeth Robinson and Suzanne Dykman, and “Mundus” by Rodrigo Toscano.
2020
From November 2020
This selection of Amtrak Poetry featured a trio of poems published by Copper Canyon Press: “Poem for My Love” by June Jordan, “Turn You Over” by Jericho Brown, and “OBIT” by Victoria Chang.
From September 2020
The second installation of Amtrak Poetry featured a trio of poems published by Graywolf Press: “We Lived Happily during the War” by Ilya Kaminksy, “in lieu of a poem i’d like to say” by Danez Smith, and “Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball” by Natalie Diaz.
From July 2020
We inaugurated the installation series with a single Ashbery poem—”Down by the Station, Early in the Morning”—stretching across the three glass wall vitrines. This poem, from A Wave (1984), invites us to imagine breaking through to new possibilities.
