Kent State University's Wick Poetry Center will relocate to a new poetry park and building to stand on the Esplanade that, when finished this year, will link campus to downtown Kent.

David Hassler, director of the Wick Poetry Center, said they will relocate to the May Prentice House, which will stand off South Lincoln Street behind the Starbucks building and directly across the Esplanade from the new College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Hassler said the relocation project will incorporate an interactive poetry park, which will allow people to interact with interchangeable poetry posters via their smart phone or tablet device.

He said the park creates both a physical greenspace to bridge the town and gown, but it also creates a virtual space where people can listen to readings and watch videos related to the current exhibit on display in the park.

"So you’ll walk around the park and actually hear the voices both from our own community and from national poets and poet laureates," Hassler said. "It's wonderfully flexible.

"To me Kent has always been a very fertile ground for the poetry and the arts, and this feels like a natural expression of that creative and energetic spirit in Kent," he said. "And I see it as a very flexible and important gathering space for artists from all art forms, and really sort of a catalyst for engaging the community with the university in an ongoing, creative kind of dialogue."

To learn more about the park or to donate to the fund to renovate the interior of the house visit the Wick Center website.

The timeline for the move, optimistically, is to have the May Prentice House relocated and open to the center in time for homecoming activities in October.

"We’re hoping to move in and have phase one of the park completed by homecoming," Hassler said. "That’s the goal."