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Poetry students blend blindness and art
Twenty undergraduate students in Iowa Poet Laureate Mary Swander’s poetry class at Iowa State University presented their original poems about blindness and art during a reading and reception at the Des Moines Art Center on Monday, Dec. 6.
As part of a collaboration between the Iowa Department for the Blind, Iowa State University and the Des Moines Art Center, the event served as a forum to showcase the students’ exploration of disabilities, poetry and art.
In October, the students traveled from Ames to the Iowa Department for the Blind where they met and interviewed two blind staff members, toured the building, took brief instruction on using a long white cane to maneuver, and donned blind folds so they could experience the world without their sight. They traveled, still blindfolded, to the downtown Pappajohn Sculpture Park and were given docent-led tours during which they were able to touch several of the works with gloved hands. They returned to Ames to translate the experience into original poetry, which was then produced in audio and Braille formats and put into circulation by the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a division of the IDB.
“This project not only allows a student to experience art in a new way, asking them to expand their thinking and their sensory perception,” said Swander, a distinguished faculty member in ISU’s English department. “The poems express ways of interpreting art without having seen it, and this project explores the deeper ideas of art appreciation for all and disability awareness.”
Staff members from the Department created touchable maquettes of 14 of the sculptures in the downtown park. The maquettes give a blind or visually impaired person the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of each sculpture in a small-scale format. Brailled copies of the poems accompany the maquettes.
