This Thursday, April 10th, Metro will be hosting poetry readings at Union Station during rush hour. Starting at 4pm, three poets from the Poetry Society of America (Elena Karina Byrne, Suzanne Lummis, and Marisela Norte) will read selections of their work to commuters. This special event is being held to commemorate 10 years of Poetry in Motion, a program created by the Poetry Society of America that places poetry on our buses and trains where ads might typically be found. Poetry in Motion was first introduced in New York City in 1992, and came to Los Angeles in 1998. There are over 60,000 poetry placards on the interiors of Metro buses.
Of particular interest is poet Marisela Norte, whose work is not only featured on Metro buses, but is written on them! According to her artist statement, Marisela writes most of her East Los Angeles inspired poetry while riding Metro Line 18[PDF] from East LA to Downtown. She doesn’t drive and considers her poetry her vehicle, which is cool enough for me to actually give poetry another chance and check out Marisela and the others Thursday at Union Station.
Image courtesy of iZENstein.
One of our readers from out-of-town emailed us with a question, and I’m putting it to you guys to help her out. Here it is:
Hi, I’m going to LA and I was wondering if you knew if there were lockers available at Union Station, as I plan to use the FlyAway bus to LAX after exploring the city for a bit. If you do, do you know if they’d be big enough for a suitcase of moderate size? Thanks!
I don’t know the answer to this off the top of my head. My gut tells me that there’s no lockers at Union Station… someone prove me wrong. If I’m right, can anyone suggest any creative ways for a visitor to safely store suitcases at/near Union Station? L.A. needs to be friendly to our 25.4 million yearly visitors. Thanks!
It’s the last day of the month, you need a new Metro Pass, you happen to be at Union Station. Just outside you can see the silhouette of the MTA Headquarters or “the Taj Mahal” at it is snidely referred to because of it’s imposing grandeur. The Gateway Transit Center at the east side of Union Station is filled with spectacular light from the stained glass windows above. A mural representing the diversity of our city welcomes travelers of many races, genders, religions, and all of other possible human categories. The painting seems to come to life below as you see a line of the very people represented in the image, all of them waiting patiently to purchase their Metro Pass for the coming month.
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