Water, words mix with USF’s interactive Creekshed map

A new project from the University of South Florida libraries, in collaboration with USF English professor Thomas Hallock and Eckerd College animal studies professor Amanda Hagood, creatively tells the story of water in the Tampa Bay area, and its varied relationships with people.

Supported by a $10,000 Campus Partnership grant, Creekshed – making its debut today – is an interactive online narrative map that follows the natural water flow from the Hillsborough River to Pass-a-Grille.

USF librarians Amanda Boczar, Sydney Jordan and Theresa Burress created the map, utilizing geo-spatial software, that allows visitors to click on numerous water-specific spots in the Tampa Bay area, and read a short story, a poem, a song lyric or a personal memory associated with the location. Many of the artists utilized archival materials from the libraries to inspire their narratives.

“What are the human and natural stories that drain into the gulf? That’s really what we’re trying to get at,” Hallock explained. “The idea is that we’d better get to know the stories of all these creeks and rivers and streams and retention ponds and ditches – because every storm, they make themselves known to us.”

Contributors to this water-to-word linkage system include Jack E. Davis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf; poet Tyler Gillespie, whose books include The Thing About Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State; St. Pete poet and novelist Gloria Muñoz (Danzirly; This is the Year); NPR commentator and author Diane Roberts; USF English professor Julie Buckner Armstrong (author of Mary Turner and the Memory of Lynching); novelist Sheree L. Greer (A Return to Arms); spoken word artist and poet Pedro el Poeta Jarquin; and venerated historian Gary R. Mormino, author of Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida.

Program directors Hallock and Hagood each contributed a piece; both were first published in the Tampa Bay weekly Creative Loafing.

The ekphrastic (meaning “commentary on art”) works are varied, from Greer’s lyrical homage to Odessa’s Lake Rogers Park to Davis’ humorous, bittersweet memories of water-skiing in alligator-infested Lake Maggiore as a teenager.

Mormino writes about the precipitous decline of oyster beds in Tampa Bay. Hallock contributes a sad poetic rumination on a Burgert Brothers photo he found, dated 1923: Crowd of people swimming in the water and walking through the sand on Sunset Beach in Treasure Island, Florida.

Hallock, Hagood and many of the participating writers and artists will attend a website-launching reception from 4 to 5:30 p.m. today, at Nelson Poynter Memorial Library, 140 7th Avenue S., St. Petersburg. The event will also feature a performance from Seminole singer/songwriter Rita Youngman.

Creekshed – again, here’s the website – is meant to be open-ended, like an ever-flowing river. Hallock said it will be continually added to. “We’ve worked too hard for this to be a one and done,” he laughed.

“It really is going to be an online ongoing project. And it’s really part of a push, on the part of USF St. Pete, to really build up what is called Blue Humanities, or environmental humanities involving the water: What are the links between water and culture?”