Sometimes the only poetry we understand is the poetry of love and loss, relationships and sex. We can enter these poems more easily because of their universal themes. We’ve all fallen in love or we have fooled ourselves at least once that it was love we fell into. As we enter theses poems through the front door, we often experience and re-experience the emotional events that have marked the poet’s life our own.

David Zalben, the Miami-based artist, will open “A Love You Can’t Live Without,” an ongoing installation of non-linearly conceived wire-sculpture poetry at the ArtCenter/South Florida June 6th – July 12th. The installation will come to life over 41 days of the exhibition in the ArtCenter windows.

“Each evening, I will write about my many muses, love, lust and other related subjects,” said Zalben. “Aside from the physical challenge of bending 16-gauge wire into intricate lettering, there’s the psychological pressure of creating something in public that is normally a private process, and of sharing meaningful thoughts that are an honest expression of my state of mind.”

Zalben will add verses with his wire-graffiti style every night. A chaotic whirlwind of a poem will emerge that uses shape and text in ways that capture the essence of his experiences that are permanently etched into his conscious memory. In the end, the result will be a stream of consciousness that juxtaposes memory against fantasy. It will be up to us to determine which sentiments are real and which ones are not.

During “A Love You Can’t Live Without,” from June 6 – July 12th, David Zalben will write prose in his signature wire-graffiti style in the main windows of ArtCenter/South Florida, 800 Lincoln Rd (just west of Meridian Ave), Miami Beach; 305-310-4256; www.davidzz.com