Poetry pay-and-display tickets launched

Unesco City of Literature director Nicky Page and Poetick lead designer Ben Alder with pay-and...
Unesco City of Literature director Nicky Page and Poetick lead designer Ben Alder with pay-and-display meter tickets that include work by Dunedin poets. Photo: Gregor Richardson.
Dunedin's literary credentials have taken a step up, with the simple task of paying for parking in the city now a poetic event.

Poetry is being printed on the back of tickets from pay-and-display parking meters, with a machine in the Octagon the first to be used for the project.

More machines will be added when their paper rolls are replaced.

The idea came from a concept created by Poetick’s Ben Alder and Liam Bigelow, who developed  modified pay-and-display parking machines for last year’s Vogel St Party.

Poems are printed on the back of the ticket, along with information already printed there, meaning the initiative can be done at no cost to ratepayers.

Unesco City of Literature director Nicky Page said a machine outside the Dunedin Public Art Gallery was already providing the poetry tickets, and more would do so as the rolls of paper used for the tickets ran out in other machines.

Poems by eight  local poets — Ruth Arnison, Diane Brown, Jonathan Cweorth, James Dignan, Lynley Edmeades, David Eggleton, Ian Loughran and Carolyn McCurdie — were used for the launch of the initiative.

Ms Page said she would gauge public reaction to the idea and if it was popular more machines in the city might include verse with the time and date on the parking ticket.

"If people enjoy it there’s no reason it won’t be in every machine.

"The level of expansion will depend on the feedback," Ms Page said.

Mr Alder said he hoped printing poetry on pay-and-display tickets would turn people’s parking experience from "a dull chore into something they can look forward to".

In future Poetick planned to provide an online platform that would allow anybody around the world to submit poetry.

Of seeing the tickets being produced in the Octagon yesterday, he said he felt satisfaction "and a little bit of relief’" the idea had come to fruition.

david.loughrey@odt.co.nz

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