Aggressive Perfector

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 6, 2006 4:33PM

The CTA is really showing us its softer side this year. First they unveiled the pretty new pink line; now they’re heading up the new “ELevated Verse” campaign, sponsored by the CPS, the CTA, and The Poetry Center of Chicago.

From June 5 to July 2, poems from 25 students involved in the Hands On Stanzas Program will be displayed at 50 stations on all eight transit lines. The idea is to bombard the kids, and us, with poetry, to help us understand it better.

The Hands On Stanzas Program sponsored by the Poetry Center of Chicago, brings poets to schools and provides workshops for students for 20 weeks.

We like the advertising idea. It’s a better thing to do with your time then wonder what the heck the new “Axe” ads mean, or having to look at that poor guy with hepatitis-face. We also like this idea better than the other poetry on the El idea. Those poems confused us at 5:00PM on a Friday after we’d been out drinking the night before. We like the design and catchiness of the new campaign; and we have a funny feeling the kids poems are going to make us giggle, instead of make us confused.

Way to go CTA, but be careful, the MTA is starting to call us "girly".