Photo by Caitlin Abrams
sidewalk-poem
Poem by Eyang Wu on Larpenteur Ave. W.
The Backstory
In 2008, artist Marcus Young had the idea to put local writers’ literary handprints in the concrete every year, and brainstormed a project called “Everyday Poems for City Sidewalks.” The City of St. Paul approved it and partnered with nonprofit Public Art St. Paul to create the Sidewalk Poetry Contest.
Every other year, St. Paul–based poets can submit short works that, if chosen, are stamped into wet cement during routine repairs. “Marcus envisioned that the poems would be like pages in a book, with the sidewalk panels as pages,” says Colleen Sheehy, Public Art St. Paul’s executive director. “And people who live in St. Paul have been writing poems—the book’s story—for more than a decade.”
The Expansion
Now, hundreds of local poets submit works for each contest, and more than 80 poems have been stamped 1,300 times. (Locations are chosen somewhat randomly: The city marks spots in need of repairs, and a Public Art St. Paul field coordinator determines sidewalk panels that might be a good fit for a literary spruce-up.)
In 2019, the contest expanded to include poems in Somali, Hmong, Spanish, and Dakota. And, Sheehy says, a few cities across the country contact Public Art St. Paul each year to learn how they might do something similar.
The Latest
Last summer, the project held its largest contest yet to celebrate its 15th anniversary: A jury of local poets chose 15 new poems, significantly more than most contests’ five-ish. And, to coincide with the summer’s Wakpa Triennial art festival, contestants wrote to the festival’s theme—“Network of Mutuality,” inspired by a line in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
“It was important for us to reflect on everything we’ve been through the last several years,” Sheehy says. “How are we related to each other? What responsibilities do we have to each other?”
The answers may not be set in stone—but they are stamped in cement.
