‘The Beltline Chronicles’ evolves from public art to book benefitting charity
Until recently, “The Beltline Chronicles” has been known as a series of public art installations along Atlanta’s busiest bike path. But now, fans can also discover them as a book of poetry and art.
Each of the four installations (planned as an eventual eight) consists of two glossy signs, installed side-by-side like the pages of an open book. Each features a canto of poetry written by Atlanta-based writer and Vanderbilt professor Robert F. Barsky, overlaid atop black-and-white ink paintings by Atlanta-based abstract artist Susan Ker-Seymer. A QR code allows admirers to access a multimedia component of the project online.
On Aug. 9, “The Beltline Chronicles” will find new life as it is reintroduced to the public at a book launch party as the now-published book of poetry and art, currently available for sale on Amazon for $19.95. The launch party and signing, located at the Freedom Market location of the Atlanta Beltline Indie Marketplace, will feature readings by Barsky and artwork from Ker-Seymer.
The book was created with grant funds from the Beltline Arts Commission, the Vanderbilt College of Arts and Sciences and the Atlanta Mayor’s Office.
All book sale proceeds will benefit one of several Atlanta metro nonprofit organizations that serve the hungry or homeless, including the Covenant House, St. Vincent de Paul, City of Refuge and Crossroads. Purchasers who buy their copy at the book launch party will have the option to select which nonprofit their purchase will benefit.
Barsky chose nonprofits benefiting the hungry and homeless in recognition of individuals displaced by the building of the Beltline.
The book contains full pages of Ker-Seymer’s abstract ink imaginings and Barsky’s eight cantos of poetry. Each canto is written from the perspective of the poems’ fictional protagonist and narrator, George.
George is from Montreal. He is a flâneur, the Parisian-coined term for a curious wanderer who strolls the city observing the urban environment without a specific route in mind. For a flâneur like George, the journey is the destination. And in “The Beltline Chronicles,” traversing Atlanta’s Beltline is George’s quest.
In each of the eight cantos (four of which are already inscribed on the installations along the Beltline), George discovers a different section of Atlanta. For example, in one George peruses Piedmont Park and visits Atlanta Botanical Garden.
Sometimes he discovers stories from things he sees along the way, like a smashed-up white bicycle that once belonged to a real girl who was killed crossing the street.
As a romantic and intellectual, George connects his musings to artistic, philosophical and geographical references that many readers might need to look up to understand: Rusticello, Baudelaire, Blaise Cendrars.
“The idea was that (George) would go through all of the neighborhoods connected by the Beltline … And every morning, before he sets out, he reads poetry about quests. He reads Dante. He reads Chaucer," said Barsky. “So throughout the poem, he’s making reference to these things. ”
Barsky himself has long been captivated by quests. Before he moved to Atlanta years ago, he was living abroad in Switzerland. While there, he decided to ride his bicycle 5,000 kilometers across Europe. Along the way he discovered the works of English romantic poet Lord Byron who, in a sense, kept him company along his often lonely journey.
“I feel like he saved me because he was entertaining, and he was sweet. He was kind and he was fun. He travels all over Europe,” said Barsky. “I decided to follow him on my bicycle. So, this theme of questing through poetry, I think was lodged in my mind.”
Some of the cantos in “The Beltline Chronicles” are inspired by, and mimic the construction of, Lord Byron’s poetry.
A Guggenheim Fellowship allowed Barsky to spend 18 months researching the histories and communities around the Beltline to use in his cantos.
During his research, he met Ryan Gravel, the urban planning visionary behind the Beltline, and interviewed builders, designers, gardeners and historians. He visited library archives and dove into the writings of Atlanta civil rights leaders. He recorded overheard conversations along the Beltline and discovered its previous history as a rail line that connected radically different neighborhoods. He took thousands of photographs.
The result is both an online experience designed using a digital museum and archive platform by MIT, in addition to the eight cantos of poetry and artwork by Ker-Seymer.
Barsky first approached Ker-Seymer with samples of his cantos at her then-art studio along the Eastside Beltline.
“I thought how wonderful it would be to respond to his poem,” Ker-Seymer said. “In reading the poems, a lot of the ideas came out of it. The ideas of pathways and connectivity and people coming together and displacement and gateways all started percolating in my head.”
Intuitively, Ker-Seymer started flowing ink onto recycled cotton rag paper from India in abstract ways.
“The flow of the ink is evocative to me of travel and the Beltline,” she said. “It came to me very organically, the response to his work. I thought I would start with a dozen drawings. I ended up doing more than 50 and paintings.”
Barsky hopes “The Beltline Chronicles,” in any of its forms, activates exploration and creativity.
“I hope it inspires people to go out and be their own poets on the Beltline,” he said. “To have their own encounters and tell their own stories.”
If you go
“The Beltline Chronicles” book launch party. 4-8 p.m. Aug. 9. Atlanta Beltline Indie Marketplace Freedom Market location. 830 Willoughby Way NE, Atlanta. beltline.org/art/beltline-chronicles-1/.
Update
After publication, the location of the book launch party was moved. This story contains the new information.
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