While sitting at the bus stop, it always seems as if time is passing by so slow. Either the bus was too early and you missed it, the bus was late and you missed it, or you have been waiting for hours and haven’t seen a bus in sight.
This could get very frustrating at times, but at the bus stop located at Waialae Avenue and 3rd Aveue, time passing by slowly will never be an issue.
“The Poem Wall” speaks for itself. Many Chaminade students and local bus riders have noticed something different about bus stop 3179 located just outside the Chaminade campus catering to routes 1, 14 and 9 traveling westbound.
The stop sits at the back of an apartment complex with a concrete molding brick wall that has open gaps that are used for cooling.
Photo by Michelle Hamilton-Golis.
Some inventive mind decided to take what it uses for the building to open up an atmosphere of “Art” to a new level. The bus stop is now known as “The Poem Wall Bus Stop.” With just five pieces of colorful construction paper, markers, paint, a few pieces of tape and a creative mind, someone has created a masterpiece.
“Waiting for the bus will no longer be boring for me,” said Michelle Hamilton-Golis, a Chaminade senior and bus rider “Whoever came up with this idea is brilliant, and I definitely would like to meet them.”
The poem wall reads, “Take a poem, leave a poem ☺ or short story, or photograph, or… small objects are also welcome!”
Surprisingly, many people are leaving notes, stories, quotes, poems, photos and all kinds of artwork for people to see while waiting for the bus. How revolutionary is this message of giving and taking. As people sit down at the bus stop, they are able to read, see, or be a part of artwork that someone else has created and leave their mark with their own artwork in the same place to be discovered by someone else.
“I read plenty of papers that people left at the bus stop poem wall, and I was amazed at the positivity in what people wrote,” said Will Jackson, a local to the community. “Thank you to whoever wrote the note about life being as good as you make it, because this quote made my day.”
“I haven’t read anything from the wall, but I see people reading something every day,” said Amy Rorabaugh, junior at Chaminade. “I think it’s a really cool idea.”
People take a poem, and read one everyday, but here are just a few anonymous that are available:
• “Life is only as good as you make it.”
Photo by Michelle Hamilton-Golis.
• “I feel like a pimp with my three girls waiting at the bus stop for the number 9 to come.”
• “Why is the bus always so late, I swear, there always on the wrong schedule.”
• “Waiting at this bus stop is like waiting for a man to marry you after 7 years worth of relationship.”
• “Romans 8:28, And we know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
• “#Turnup to the max.”
• “I hate being sober is my banger.”
• “Never give up after falling down, the hard part is complete, getting up is the easiest.”
• “In everything you do, go hard then go home.”
No matter what you do in life, creativity is everywhere, sometimes even at the last places you could think of like a bus stop. Touching lives could be as simple as giving money to a charity every month, going to a third-world country and helping the people there, or writing a short story, quote, a poem at the bus stop changing someone’s life.