Look down at the street to find a continuous line of light gray square stone blocks embedded in the darker red brick pavement, each bearing a single deeply carved capital letter. This is the Letters of Utrecht, an endless poem unfolding directly on the ground before you. Every single Saturday, at exactly one o'clock PM, a stone mason hews a brand new letter into the next paving block. They plan to keep doing this for as long as Saturdays exist. It takes about three years just to publish an average sentence, and the poem grows by only five meters a year.
It was dreamed up by the Utrecht Guild of Poets. Take a glance at your screen to see image one. That is a close up of the initial pieces, unveiled on the second of June, two thousand and twelve, by Mayor Aleid Wolfsen. He actually chiseled the block for that day himself. The custom font was designed specifically for this route by Hanneke Verheijke.
The concept is entirely brilliant! It is inspired by projects focused on deep, long term thinking, like the Ten Thousand Year Clock being built in Texas. In fact, the very first block in this poem, carrying the letter J, was cut from the same Texan mountain range as that clock. This project is what artists call a social sculpture, which is a kind of living artwork meant to shape human society and make us think about our collective future.
It is entirely funded by citizens who sponsor a letter to leave their mark for posterity. The poet keeps the upcoming words a strict secret. If people keep funding it, this creeping line of text will eventually trace the giant letters U and T across the city map. Future generations will have to decide where the poem goes after the year twenty-three fifty. Since this street is public, this expanding masterpiece is always open for you to explore.
Take a moment to read the carved stones and ponder the future. Whenever you are ready, we will wander toward our next stop.
