Giant poems to greet fliers at Miami International Airport

Each year during April, National Poetry Month, the annual O, Miami poetry festival tries to fulfill its mission of having everyone in Miami-Dade County encounter a poem at least once during the month.

In the past, program participants have put lines of poetry on bandannas worn by dogs and painted poems inside urinals.

This year’s festival includes verse disguised as 15- and 30-second radio commercials and “Poems To The Sky,” a project by Randy Burman, who last year put poems on the wrappers of ice pops that were handed out for free.

Burman’s project this year entails painting poems by local students in letters 40 feet high onto the rooftops of two buildings that sit in the flight paths of planes landing and taking off at Miami International Airport.

Here’s the poem by third-grader Nieema Marshall that passengers will see:

I am
from
a place
where
it does
not snow

“The unknowing window seat occupant who just happens to look out the window as they are taking off to the east or landing from the west is the winner,” said Burman via email. “Having people discovering a poem in a place they never expected it is the ideal.”

Here’s the rooftop poem by fourth-grader Tywon Williams:

When I look 
at a cloud
I feel like 
I am one

Poem-painting started Tuesday and Burman said the goal is to have both poems painted by the end of the month, with no plans yet for when and how the poems might be removed.

For poetry lovers not planning to fly to or from MIA anytime soon — and for those not lucky enough to have secured a window seat — there are plans to send up a drone up to take photos of the poems.

Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel's "At the Airport" columnist. She occasionally contributes to Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the Sky blog. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.