Greenwood Cemetery Rockford, Illinois

As a poet I'm the first person to admit words can be a damn troublesome nuisance. A lot of times they refuse to do what you want them to do. And sometimes they do exactly the opposite. As a poet I'm always looking at words. Maybe I'm hypersensative, but I don't think I see words the same way most other people do. This is another entry in my series of  Poem Photos, which is a collection of examples where words and images seem to evoke contrary, often opposite emotions from what might have been intended. 

Greenwood cemetery in Rockford, Illinois.

Greenwood Cemetery is one of Rockford's oldest and most beautiful historic cemeteries, established in the 1840s when Rockford itself was still a young community. Located along North Main Street, its monuments and family plots preserve the names of generations of people who helped build the city, including prominent industrialists, politicians, veterans, and ordinary Rockford families.

Like many nineteenth-century cemeteries, Greenwood was designed as more than simply a place to bury the dead. Its winding roads, mature trees, elaborate monuments, and landscaped grounds reflect the rural cemetery movement, when cemeteries were also intended to be quiet public spaces for walking and contemplation. Today it functions almost like an outdoor archive of Rockford history. Walk around long enough and you'll encounter names that also appear on streets, buildings, businesses, and in nearly every chapter of the city's past.

Which makes Greenwood an especially appropriate place to find words behaving strangely.

Pin It