About the project

In 2013 and 2014, artist Melanie Crean worked with fifteen poets and community activists related to Startup Box South Bronx to record spoken-word poetry at the exact Hunts Point locations that inspired their words — a subway platform, a juvenile detention center, an empty lot, a strip club, a river. Written from the point of view of each place, as if the place itself had witnessed the poet's life, the poems answer back against sensationalized media portrayals of the neighborhood.

The project launched with a public poetry walk in June 2014, starting at 901 Hunts Point Avenue at the corner of Garrison Avenue, and culminating in a closing reception at The Bronx Museum, 1040 Grand Concourse.

Credits

Direction

Melanie Crean

Poets & activists

Startup Box South Bronx — James Peach McClory, Paula Ramirez, Robert "Comanche" Romero, Audrey De Jesus, Simply Rob Vassilarakis, Marta Latimer, Rita Jones, Shandle Burton, Mawa & Rachel Erkalo, Antuan "Thug Love" Sumpter, Gabby Nelson, Sandy De Jesus, Big Rob Kimble, Melissa Lomba, and Caridad "La Bruja" De La Luz

Production support

Melissa Lomba, Majora Carter Group LLC

Produced by

Jordan Parnass, JPDA

Web design & identity

Kendall Wood

Original art direction

Enrique Maitland

Video compositing

Kate Efimova

Original app development

Apon Palanuwech, Dimitri Stancioff, Jane Friedhoff

From the poetry walk