Bright, blooming poppies will light up Liberty Memorial Tower during KC’s NFL Draft

The National WWI Museum and Memorial will transform the Liberty Memorial Tower into a field of poppies starting Tuesday until Saturday, in honor of veterans who lost their lives in service.

The “Horizons” art installation, sponsored by the museum, in conjunction with the NFL Draft, will be lit each night at sunset between 7:45 and 8:15 p.m.

The installation will use projection mapping technology to showcase a field of poppies floating over a blue horizon, according to a statement from the museum. According to the museum, poppies symbolize resilience and have been associated with WWI because of a poem by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, called “In Flanders Fields.”

“If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields,” the poem reads.

The poem was written in 1915 after McCrae witnessed his friend’s death in an area in Belgium called Flanders. Soon after his friend was buried, wild poppies started to bloom on the makeshift graves of those who lost their lives.

McCrae’s poem is now one of the most popular poems from that era and speaks to the sacrifices made during WWI. In the entrance to the museum and memorial, there are 9,000 poppies on display in remembrance of the millions of deaths that occurred during WWI.

To learn more about the National WWI Museum and Memorial, visit here.

The NFL Draft Experience fan festival will be open from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. on both Thursday and Friday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday on the south side of the museum. The festival is free to the public, but guests will need to register here or download the NFL OnePass app in order to participate.

This story was originally published April 25, 2023 at 10:28 AM.

Kynala Phillips

The Kansas City Star

Kynala Phillips was a Service Journalism Reporter at The Kansas City Star, where she worked to answer readers questions about the resources and services in the community. She attended the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is originally from Madison, Wisconsin.