Harrison Haiku

I never really want to spend extra time hanging out in the subway. But, when I have to involuntarily freeze underground while waiting for the next train, it would be nice to have something artistically interesting to look at (besides the occasional singing homeless man). Unfortunately, I think Columbia College’s Harrison Haiku project at the same red line stop, is not more engaging to me than the homeless man. Tiled walls are adorned with boldly colored green, red, and yellow assorted squares. Geometric leaves of the same primary coloring are scattered aimlessly on the tunnel’s domed ceiling. But what I assume was meant to be the “star” of this project, the poetry, is plastered in plain, simple black lettering throughout the station. Some poems appear in full, while others are broken-up, and dispersed among pillars. Kenneth Daley, chair of the English Department at Columbia pleads, “The spare beauty of the Haiku form paired with the colorful graphics will be a wonderful ‘awakening’ for the South Loop residents and workers, as well as the thousands of Columbia and Jones students, faculty and staff who use the Harrison subway each day.” Though I appreciate this attempt to make poetry an appealing read and sight, this display is underwhelming. The chosen typeface seems much too large for the space, so that it easily gets lost in the graphic squares, and becomes just letters. My eye was not immediately drawn to anything when I walked into this not absolutely gross, but mostly run-down subway entrance. There was simply too much going on, and not enough negative space; if the lettering had been smaller, perhaps the viewer’s attention would be captured…because, apparently, crazy-homeless-man entertainment is hard to beat.

What I assume Columbia College hoped to promote with this project was a sense of hip, urban, simplicity that the school embodies. The graphic, choppy, modernist leaf stickers are kind of edgy, I guess. Sort of. The poetry itself is a bit quirky, in a way. Maybe. In it’s entirety, however, the Harrison Haiku project does not portray the lively, evolving, exciting art world that Columbia students (and future students) are (or want to be) absorbed in.