New York #2 (detail)
©2001, Michael O'Rourke

A walkway in a park, people taking their leisure, strolling, playing board games. To the right, faint sounds of human voices are heard coming through the mural wall behind the fountain. As we listen more closely, we realize that the voices are speaking, each in its own language, poetry. The voices intermingle, overlap. Because the poetry is in so many different languages (thirteen), we only sometimes understand what is being said, but we recognize that all of the speakers have felt things similar to what we feel, and that is why we all respond to poetry, whatever our language or background.

Click below to play a segment of the poetry audio.

The walkway recedes from us in a pronounced perspective. This is in contrast to most of the other images, which are quite flat, with either no perspective or a very shallow space. Being positioned almost in the exact center of the entire mural, the walkway image draws our eye inwards, as if entering the space of the mural. Only two other images in the mural have such a noticeable perspective: an image of people walking on the street, in the lower left corner of the mural; and an image of Grand Central station, to the far right side of the mural. Postioned on either side, and drawing us outwards, each of these frames the composition.