In Sacramento's South Natomas neighborhood, six recently completed large-scale steel sculptures lift poetry off the page and into the physical realm. Dubbed Poet Laureate Park, the installation lets visitors walk around, step between, and interact with the rhythmic phrases of the capital city's top bards.

Each sculpture is inspired by a single poem, and each is a distinct experience. The words of Bob Stanley— "Carve the smile in stone, shout the song across canyons"—are cut into weathered sheets and stand up like playing cards from a concrete pedestal.

José Montoya's "This Valley in September" wraps around a cylinder that you can step inside, and Julia Connor's "M(other) Tongue" cascades across metal pages.

"There's a beautiful aesthetic quality in the shapes and patterns of the letters," says the artist, Troy Corliss. More than a dozen of his other public works are on display in California, Nevada, Colorado, and Ohio.