SOMA – Poetry Sculpture Garden

The plaque on the side of the wall explains the area like this:

199 Fremont poetry/sculpture garden is a unique collaborative piece that combines the talents of Robert Hass, a world famous poet, and Paul Kos, a world-class sculptor.

The garden is composed of three major elements:

A large installation of the plaza’s Sierra granite as a sculptural form.

Sculptor Kos’s setting of Poet Hass’ words in the wall of the plaza.

In the place of a fountain, a small, witty set of faucets, sited quietly in the back of the plaza and designed to drip – or “tick like a clock” in a way that makes a sort of rhyme with Hass’ words – which evoke the times of day and times of year, and the passage of time in a busy downtown plaza.

The plaza is configured with rough granite seating stones with plantings of birch trees, mountain shrubs and flowers meant to be suggestive of the Sierra Mountains.

The center of interest in the plaza is a massive 86-ton boulder Kos found in Soda Springs. This “Big Bertha” boulder casts its own reflection…somewhat like an impressionist painting as the reflecting brushstrokes are comprised of smaller boulders and sliced pavers.

Behind the large boulder Kos’ minimalist fountain is one of the smallest of any in a display of public art. Housed like a small grotto with a small reflecting pool, the fountain functions as a witty small clock, a recollection of the way time is measured out; an evocation of gardens and leisure to be had elsewhere than in a busy city. It is a subtle reminder of how precious water is to the life of California

The combination of fountain, clock, grotto and pool ticks off seconds for Hass’ time-based words: when? NOW why? “DAYS ELAPSE” Or, as Hass’ punning, half hidden inscription has it “DAISY LAPS”.

The whole installation – the granite stone, the faucet/clock and the sculptural setting of the poem, peeking out between birch leaves and the midday sun, manages to convey something of the life of the city, something of the regional roots of its building materials, the post-modern playfulness of its early twenty-first century artist, and to provide a warm escape into an idea of a garden, or a back country meadow in the middle of the busy city.”

About the artists

One of America’s greatest know poets, Robert Hass, a former Poet Laureate of the United States, a professor of English at UC Berkeley, is also a native San Franciscan.

Paul Kos, an acclaimed sculptor in the conceptual and minimalist tradition, has undertaken many public art projects in the Bay Area – from a stained glass window, fashioned from color television sets in the shape of a Gothic arch in an underground chapel in the Napa Valley to a relief at the the State Archive Building in Sacramento.

The poem is difficult to read with the trees – I was unable to find entire thing, but here is a snippet for your pleasure:

“An echo wandered through here what? an echo wandered through hear it? there was morning and later/there was evening days elapse what? a reck oh! wan where are we going this city of stone and/hills and sudden vistas and people rushing to their various appointments what points the way?”

The site also includes the Marine Electric Building, which houses a child care center and Town Hall Restaurant.

The Landscape Architect on the project was Antonia Bava.

UPDATE September 2018.  As of this date, the only portion of the art installation remaining is Big Bertha.  The fountain and the poetry wall are gone.

The reasons are explained in this San Francisco Chronicle article, that author agrees with me that it was a shame to do what they did to this public space.