About

During the summer of 2019, I experimented with documenting my running route by writing haibun poems about it. These poems are crafted from details I recorded in my online running log over the past 3 years. They cover winter, spring, summer, and fall and focus on 6 locations: 1. a stand of oaks lining the path near the 34th street parking lot, 2. descending below the road through a tunnel of trees to a spot where 2 fences and 2 walls line the path, 3. the sand flats on the shore of the river, reached by walking down some old stone steps and through a floodplain forest, 4. a railroad trestle, 5. ascending from below the road to the top of a small hill where an old oak tree waits and breathes, and 6. the Winchell Trail above a ravine and below the 36th street parking lot. Because the Gorge is part of the National Parks system, I decided to turn the collection of 6 poems into a National Park brochure, using its classic Unigrid system as the form.