A class in perspective

In the art room at Encampment K-12, junior and senior high students were instructed to come up with a place that mattered to them, then another, and then to find the line between them.

The lines, called ley lines, are related to the most recent project of Harvey Hix, professor of poetry and philosophy at University of Wyoming (UW). Hix visited Encampment on Monday to instruct students before heading up the line to Saratoga to give a similar presentation at the Platte Valley Community Center.

The students provided places that ranged from their dad's car, a basketball court and an imaginary box. The places, Hix assured them, could be physical or mental, and they might be accessed from any different kind of perspective. When he asked the students to look at the place from a different angle, they came up with answers that ranged from different states of mind to looking up while underwater. "Part of what's exciting to me about this project is that it invites interaction," Hix said. "It doesn't ask you to be passive and receive this thing. It asks for engagement."

According to Hix, ley lines can be roads, trails or spiritual connections. A trail, for example, is a ley line in that it reflects a path that people or game have a reason to travel frequently. Reflections on places, spaces and the connection between them became the focus of the exhibit which he curated, "Ley Lines" at the UW Art Museum.

Hix visited the Platte Valley through what could be considered a tour across the state, a very appropriate activity for an art exhibit and book based on lines, trails, roads and places. His speaking series examines different pieces from the exhibit, the artist statements and details about ley lines in general. Hix was a National Book Award finalist, authoring approximately 10 books of poetry and three books of prose, according to the Poetry Foundation.

"There's a physicality to an exhibit that I don't often get," Hix said of the excitement he felt curating an exhibit for the first time. The book "Ley Lines" was published in 2014 by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. "I understand poetry as trying to see the world more clearly," Hix said of his artistic philosophy. "For me a poem is an act of listening."