THE POWER OF POETRY?

　　New York City pedestrians - bombarded by traffic, noise and thousands of signs. So the city's Department of Transportation is offering 200 inventive options. Called "Curbside Haiku", Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says the project combines art and safety.

　　Janette Sadik-Khan (New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner): "The idea is to take a new approach and try some different ways to get the message across to pedestrians that they need to look out when they're crossing the street." The creator of the signs is poet and artist John Morse.

　　John Morse:"I worked on those poems and worked on them and worked on them and worked on them and I'd sometimes grieve over a single word, a single syllable. You know the construct of a Haiku is five, seven, five syllables. So that every syllable counts, so you pick it well."

　　A dozen images and Haiku -- two of which are in Spanish -- are posted in 144 locations. Morse says he wants his Haiku to convey a sense of intimacy and be discovered rather than appear larger-than-life. And at only 8 by 8 inches each they are easily missed.

　　Naiyma West: "I just don't understand why it has to be up there, people could just crash and stuff, but yeah."Kalene Walsh: "I wouldn't even notice it."

　　Melanie Sutherland: "I don't know how many people will actually look at it. We're a little focused on what's going forward." Some 4,000 pedestrians are killed or seriously injured in the Big Apple every year.

　　Janette Sadik-Khan (New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner): "For far too long we've looked at our streets through a 1950's planning perspective, a windshield perspective. And when you think about the fact that over half of New Yorkers don't even own a car, we need to really re-evaluate and prioritize sustainable modes of transport." "Curbside Haiku" will be up for just under one year, but as Morse says: for an artist, 11 months in New York City is not a bad run.

(Tara Cleary, Reuters)

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