Haikus on the Road

One new idea for every day in 2011. We're talking big, small, local, international, in action and on the drawing board. Here's today's -- what's yours? When Matthew Chase-Daniel and Jerry Wellman found an old roadside sign in Santa Fe, they decided to give it a new purpose -- in...

By Claire Lawton

April 26, 2011

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "18478561",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "16759093",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "17980324",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "16759092",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "17980324",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 24
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "16759094",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 24
        }
      ]

One new idea for every day in 2011. We're talking big, small, local, international, in action and on the drawing board. Here's today's -- what's yours?

When Matthew Chase-Daniel and Jerry Wellman found an old roadside sign in Santa Fe, they decided to give it a new purpose -- in the form of three lines, and 23 characters.

"Earlier in its life this sign advertised the coldest beer in town and then the hottest chile in the Española valley," they write. "But not everything that is cool is in the fridge and not all things hot are edible"

And so they turned to poetry. Each week for four months during summer 2011, the artists will present two new haikus on random roadside location in Santa Fe.

Poems will be collected from New Mexico-based writers, juried by Santa Fe's Poet Laureate, Joan Logghe, and all 32 poems will be documented on the project's blog.

Chase-Daniel and Wellman founded Axle Contemporary, a mobile art gallery in a 1970s aluminum stepvan in Santa Fe, where they continue to travel with installations, performance, and workshops.

For more information, check out the Axle Contemporary website and help fund their haiku project on Kickstarter:

Follow Jackalope Ranch on Facebook and Twitter.

Become A Member

BEFORE YOU GO...
Can you help us continue to share our stories? Since the beginning, Phoenix New Times has been defined as the free, independent voice of Phoenix — and we'd like to keep it that way. Our members allow us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls.