10:00am | Long Beach is just getting artsy all over the place.
In the North Long Beach neighborhood of Bixby Knolls, the local business association has installed “Poetry Boxes” outside two local coffee shops, with the goal of collecting about 100 publish-worthy works to be compiled into a book. The slogan is direct:
It’s simple: Write something. Drop it in the box.
Poets can muse on anything, and simply leave their work in one of the poetry boxes at either Coffee Bean (4105 Atlantic Avenue) or It’s A Grind Coffee House (4245 Atlantic Avenue).
The boxes have been set up by the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association, and executive director Blair Cohn gets the CBS news treatment for the idea today. Cohn and the BKBIA are also the minds behind First Fridays, the walkers club, literary society, and other cultural efforts in the area. In the news report [CBS], he explains that the goal is to create a kind of time capsule or snapshot of life in Bixby Knolls.
Isn’t that what it’s all about? In a city flooded with talent but sometimes fumbling with how to organize the arts, all you have to do is create. Then, drop your work in a box.
The project comes on the heels of the BKBIA Summer Shutters contests, which collected photos of Bixby Knolls and similarly used them to create an image of the community. So put pen to paper and share what’s on your mind!