Richard Wright is known for his landmark essays and books
depicting and confronting racial injustice. (See: Native Son and Black Boy). Recently, you may have spotted his work around the city. Although born into extreme poverty on 4 September 1908 on a plantation outside Natchez, Mississippi, he went on to become a prolific haiku writer. He wrote a staggering 4,000 haikus between 1959-1960 alone, and yet only 817 were published for the final projects of his life. Poet Kimiko Hahn has called Wright's haiku work "some of the finest in the West."
These haikus are now the subject of Seeing Into Tomorrow, a new public art project by the Poetry Society of America in which some of these verses have been turned into large-scale installations around Downtown Brooklyn.
Wrightβs haikus are currently up at seven locations: The Fulton Mall, BRIC, and the Mark Morris Dance Center. You can check out the map of their location here. More poems will be added to the facade of the Center of Fiction and there are also 38 Big Belly recycling bins on Fulton Mall that feature various poems.
Ann Taylor Store, 447 Fulton Street, corner of Jay Street
JACOB POLCYN-EVANS
Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Avenue
JACOB POLCYN-EVANS
City Point, 445 Albee Square West
JACOB POLCYN-EVANS
Shake Shack, Willoughby Pedestrian Plaza, corner of Willoughby and Adams Street
POETRY SOCIETY
Ten Star Deli & Grocery, 297 Myrtle Avenue
POETRY SOCIETY
4 Star Candy Deli, 327 Myrtle Avenue
JACOB POLCYN-EVANS
One of the Big Belly recycling bins on Fulton Mall
JACOB POLCYN-EVANS