INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Reclaiming what’s wild

Liza Hyatt has an irony radar, sharpened by the troubles of our time. This radar sounded off the day she observed a dead doe at the entrance of a new upscale housing development misnamed “The Sanctuary.”

Her reaction? To write and pin a poem on it, on the spot. The urge struck her again when she heard about Mayor Peterson’s plan to give away part of the downtown parkland known as Capital Commons. She read “Requiem to a City Park” to an audience of 15-20 citizens on June 22, asking each to stand on a dollar bill as if it was the last green space left.

Hyatt calls this responsive, risky, community-driven work eco-poetry. The suffix eco comes from the Greek oikos, meaning home. “This is ‘homing’ poetry,” Hyatt says. “It reconnects our relationship with each other and the living world.”

NUVO sat down with this activist-artist to talk about the urgency and resurgence of language, grief and truth telling.

NUVO: What compelled you to write poetry about the loss of Capital Commons?

Liza Hyatt: The first stanza of the poem describes a scene I saw awhile ago at Circle Centre. When I read about the Simons’ deal with the city to build on Capital Commons Park, I felt compelled to explore how that brief, ironic image of the overcrowded food court, the longing for open spaces and the property give-away might all be related.

NUVO: To me it seems sad when activists get involved in an issue when grieving is the only thing left to do.

Hyatt: Sometimes I think groups of women and men standing together and loudly keening are needed in every city in the world. I didn’t write “Requiem for a City Park” intending it to be primarily an expression of activism. Poetry is always a way of lovemaking, of connecting and relating, an ecstatic process. I wrote “Requiem” so I could feel more deeply my grief for the open spaces being lost every day. I took it to the park to make real to myself and others that this grief is a public one. Yet, in doing so, I was challenging not only the city’s deal with the Simons, but also the social repression of grief and of all things wild. So, in my own way, I was also being an activist.

NUVO: Does poetry make a difference?

Hyatt: For a long time I have been discontented with the traditional route of writing poetry in solitude, putting it in an envelope, mailing it to some magazine and trusting that some other solitary people will silently read it. I write poetry to be more connected to life and yet publishing in this way only felt like the opposite of connection. After years of feeling that something essential was missing, this year I finally got it. I knew I needed to put my poetry out into the living landscapes that inspire it.

NUVO: For example?

Hyatt: The poem I wrote about the wildflower hepatica on a hillside overlooking Fall Creek belongs to — and on — that hillside. So I tried chalking the poem on the wooden steps leading to the flowers. But people were too busy, too numb to stop and look at the flowers, let alone read the poem. So, I realized I needed to invite people to slow down — to give them permission to risk having sensual experiences of the world. I started going up to strangers, introducing myself as a poet, asking them to lie on their backs and read a love poem to the sky. And, when the cicadas were in full orgy, I invited Memorial Day picnickers to read aloud with me a cicada love poem and then, with maracas, join in with the cicadas’ powerful droning.

NUVO: How did people react to you?

Hyatt: A middle-aged man confided to me that the cicada poem described just how it feels for him to be in love for the first time in his life.

NUVO: Do you see your work as part of the larger environmental art movement?

Hyatt: Environmental art transcends disciplinary boundaries, involving artist and audience in a participatory relationship with the environment and the art itself. I love the work of people like Andy Goldsworthy who sculpts impermanent formations from icicles or leaves. Another inspiration for me was Suzi Gablik’s book The Re-Enchantment of Art [1988]. And the Web site called www.greenmuseum.org is a great way to see what environmental artists are doing around the world.

NUVO: What’s your mission as an environmental artist?

Hyatt: I wanted to find a way to be part of this movement. One day it just clicked that I could place my poetry in the landscape in simple ways that would draw people into active engagement. I have not been this excited about poetry since the days when I was first learning to write it. I feel like my efforts have been complete experiments. I have learned from each and each time there have been incredible spontaneous occurrences in my interactions with people — to really experience the full artistic impact of the poetry, you have to be there in the moment, watching what happens to people as they are affected by bringing the poem to life. The environmental art movement seizes these un-capturable, un-sellable moments integral to art and life.

NUVO: What difference can art make in Indy today?

Hyatt: In these times, in Indy, art is for the same thing it has always been for … to awaken the senses, to teach us of our connectedness to local place, each other, the Earth, the universe. Culturally, we are generally estranged from this kind of relationship. I am excited that Indianapolis is taking a renewed interest in public art and I hope to see a real movement locally among Indy artists toward not only beautifying our city, but reclaiming art as a way to heal and rebuild the natural kinship with the Earth.