Poem for Blue Station Stones

Poem for Blue Station Stones

Project by Claire Grossman

“Poem for Blue Station Stones” places a small plaque at the Earlington Heights Metrorail station in Brownsville in the vicinity of Beverly Buchanan’s great Miami artwork, “Blue Station Stones” (1986). The plaque excerpts lines from a poem that Alice Walker wrote specifically for the late artist: “How do we make new / And restorative of soul / The old pain? How do we learn / To carry with grace and humor / All that has happened to us?”

Tucked under the live oaks at the Metrorail entrance, the plaque indirectly alludes to the nearby artwork, a group of painted concrete forms, without directly interacting with the artwork or referring to it by name, just as the artwork itself is purposefully not identified or named on site. Buchanan’s site-specific sculptures, in particular her dwelling-like “shacks,” are often described as having an elegiac function, marking sites of racial inequity and violence. The plaque bearing Walker’s poem evokes this aspect of Buchanan’s work, but in not identifying or cataloging “Blue Station Stones,” the sign is meant to exist as a temporary echo, nod, or refrain.