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Opening Spaces by Sue Hubbard

Can poetry be public art? Does putting poems in public place, such as the Underground or on buses, automatically transform them into public art? In this thoughtful, rigorous and wide-ranging essay, Sue Hubbard, Public Art Poet for the Poetry Society from 1998-1999, argues that the transition from private to public is more complex: that poetry, if it is genuinely to blur the boundaries with 'public art', needs to engage with the visual and develop a conceptual, spatial dynamic to echo its musicality. Includes the text of Eurydice, Sue Hubbard's poem which was written for the underpass at Waterloo Station.