Funded by the National Park Service and the City of Portland’s Housing and Community Development department, Peace Chant, installed in 1984, it is the first known peace memorial in Oregon. The artist, Steven Gillman intended for the sculpture to “create a space where people could sit and have quiet time” and wanted to “express his own advocacy for peace as well as that of the nearby churches.” The park was renamed Peace Plaza in 1985.
The installation is composed of three large pillars. Displayed with the sculpture is a poem chosen by Gillman:
Let us be “Called…by the hopes of children
to a world of endless wheat and barley sugar…
whatever–the skies now lifted
and the poppies bloomed
and the men and women fed the children
and the long long lives of elders
kept the history green.”
