Andrew Motion - Hallam University Building - Sheffield, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 22.728 W 001° 27.935
30U E 602068 N 5915507
This poem in large letters down the side of this Hallam University Building was created as part of the 'Off the Shelf Festival of Writing and Reading'.
Waymark Code: WMZBHM
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/14/2018
Views: 1
"Sir Andrew Motion FRSL (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work"
link
"The Off the Shelf Festival of Writing and Reading, working with Public Art Consultant Paul Swales, has commissioned writers to create text for pieces of public art. This innovative ongoing project is called Text and the City. A variety of projects have been realised within this project and Sheffield now has a large number of public poems mounted onto buildings across Sheffield."
link
The Poem
O travellers from
somewhere else to here
Rising from Sheffield Station
and Sheaf Square
To wander through the
labyrinths of air,
Pause now, and let
the sight of this sheer cliff
Become a priming-place
which lifts you off
To speculate
What if..?
What if..?
What if..?
Cloud-shadows drag
their hands across
the white;
Rain prints the sudden
darkness of its weight;
Sun falls and leaves the
bleaching evidence of light.
Your thoughts are like
this too: as fixed as words
Set down to decorate
a blank facade
WHAT IF?
Andrew Motion
Off The Shelf 2007