It's Spring, and we're excited to bring back our Curbside Haiku initiative to fill Downtown Tulsa with more art, including the written word! Over 100 Tulsans submitted a haiku, 10 of which were selected to be displayed in Downtown's public realm. These poems have been put up along several streets, and we are so excited for you to experience these for the next 40 days! We are so grateful for the community's involvement in this public art project.
Thank you to our partners, Magic City Books and Woody Guthrie Center, for their support.
Meet the local Tulsa artist responsible for the beautiful background of our Curbside Haiku.
Dawn Tree
Local Artist and Activist
Dawn Tree is a professional graphic and abstract surrealist artist and the owner of art house Underground Tree Studios. Her art career has led her to hold artist residences, contribute to many art exhibitions, and publish a book. In 2019 Tree published a graphic art history book, Tulsa’s Black Wall Street: A Modernized Revelation. The book is comprised of archived photos from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre explained in a digestible and truthful way with remnants of hope.
Justice is a resounding theme in most, if not all, of Tree's art. A majority of her work is on wood, combining various mediums of paint and materials from aerosol, latex acrylic, gold leaf, and found branches, feathers, shells, and more. Pieces are intended to provoke thoughts of community, humanity, spirituality, and connections to present and past. They often use bright colors that contrast with each other, allowing the viewer to interpret and see many perspectives within one.
Be sure and watch this message from Tree to learn about her inspiration for the Curbside Haiku art comission.
Meet the poets joining us at Woody Guthrie Center for Curbside Haiku Poetry Night on March 23!
Dr. John Andrews
University of Oklahoma
Dr. John Andrews' first book, Colin Is Changing His Name, was a finalist for the 2018 Oklahoma Book Award and published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2017. His work has appeared in Redivider, Columbia Poetry Review, Third Coast, and other literary publications. He currently lives in Stillwater with his husband and is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Honors College at Oklahoma State University.
Dr. Todd Fuller
Honors College Oklahoma State University
Dr. Todd Fuller is the author/co-editor of three books: 60 Feet Six Inches and Other Distances from Home: The (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse (Holy Cow! Press), To the Disappearance (Mongrel Empire Press), and Level Land: Poems For and About the I35 Corridor (Lamar University Literary Press). His poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals across the country, including the American Indian Culture and Research Journal and the American Literary Review. He is curator of the Western History Collections, University Libraries at the University of Oklahoma. He lives in Norman with his wife and children.
When you walk around Downtown Tulsa, we invite you to take a picture of your favorite haiku and tag us in your post!
Mentioned in this Post
Magic City Books
221 E Archer Street
Woody Guthrie Center
102 E Reconciliation Way