Residents of Cambridge, Mass., can design some of the city’s public sidewalks during the annual sidewalk poetry contest. The city is currently in its eighth year of the contest. In the first year, the city received approximately 130 poems, and submissions have increased each year. This year over 300 were submitted. Each winner receives a $250 prize.

The idea for sidewalk poetry came to Cambridge via a local resident who called the department of public works and asked for the possibility of doing sidewalk poetry after learning of the idea elsewhere.

“The department of public works contacted us for our thoughts, and I said we should try it,” Lillian Hsu, director of public art and exhibitions at Cambridge Arts, explained. “I happened to have seen an example when I was walking on a sidewalk in St. Paul, Minn., and I thought it was an effective encounter with poetry in a daily context.”

Once the idea was planted, planning for the undertaking began. “We knew we needed the department of public works and the arts council to partner, and we added the Cambridge Public Library as an obvious third partner,” Hsu relayed. “Cambridge Public Library was already doing various programming around poetry.”

The three organizations met to discuss how to put the program together. “I called St. Paul and gathered a lot of information about how they did their program, from contest to fabrication to stamping. Marcus Young is an artist who was an artist in residence in their public works department for several years, and he came up with their program.”

It was agreed that poetry stamping could be integrated into the department of public works’ regular sidewalk repair contract. The department also agreed to fund the fabrication and installation of stamps. The arts council agreed to run the contest and any necessary programming.

The contest planning team comprises representatives from all three departments. “We meet every year around December or January to begin planning the yearly contest and related activities,” Hsu said. “We aim to run the contest March to April every year so that it aligns with National Poetry Month. Every year we evaluate prior years — what we should change and what was going well — not only in the contest but with the whole stamping process from stamp fabrication to finished stamps and maintenance or restamping.” Throughout the program, all three departments remain in communication.

In fact, throughout the country, towns and cities that hold poetry sidewalk contests keep in ongoing communication. They can connect through the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Listserv or hold virtual meetings to compare notes. Cities also seek recommendations from one another regarding fabricators or maintenance.

The sidewalk poetry contest takes place annually and is open to any current resident of any age. Each applicant may only submit one original poem. Each poem can be no more than 10 lines and not more than 40 spaces per line, including characters. The poem can be unpublished or previously published. City employees and those elected to boards, councils, committees and commission are not eligible to participate. Previous winners are ineligible to apply for five years after winning. The arts council sets up a platform via the Slideroom program to receive submissions. They also develop a flyer design and press release, allowing six weeks between the press release and poem due date for submissions. Poems are submitted online, with access to a computer or online assistance offered if necessary.

This year they added a feature to the contest allowing poems in any language, though an English translation must be submitted with the work. The selection committee is run by the arts council. Representatives from each of the three departments are joined by community members. Each year the city searches for new jurors along with a couple of published or professional poets, including some from the Poet Populist program run a few years ago.

After submission, each poem is reviewed for plagiarism and eligibility, including resident status, poem length, etc. Each member of the selection committee reads all the submitted poems and selects the top five choices. Poems are evaluated with no identifying information. Once all have been read, the selection committee gathers for a three-hour meeting. During this time, members read the top choices aloud and discuss the choices until they narrow the selection to the five winning poems.

“Beyond artful use of language and the poetic form, the selection committee looks for variety among the final selections and general audience appropriateness and appeal,” Hsu explained. “Reading all of the poems each year gives a fascinating portrait of the city through poetry.”

Once the winners are chosen, an editing session is held for the poets to review their poems one last time before the stamping process comes into play. Finalized poems are then sent to the fabricator. The stamps used have metal or wooden frames supporting a plastic material cut to create a relief of the poems. After six to eight weeks, these stamps are shipped to the department of public works.

“The stamping is quite variable depending on weather, the mix of concrete, site conditions and sometimes unknowns,” Hsu admitted. “Some have held up well and others need restamping. The physical stamps vary in size but are approximately 3 feet by 3 feet. The contractor lets the wet concrete set up a bit, then lowers the stamp and presses the poem. The concrete is then allowed to fully dry and cure just like any freshly poured sidewalk. I have seen poems stamped in other cities, and it also can vary. New England gets harsh freezes and thaws, which impacts the longevity of the concrete.”

Hsu added, “Since the sidewalk poetry program is integrated into the overall city-wide sidewalk repair program, it is hard to predict with much advanced notice the exact day when a poem will be stamped. If poems are finalized in May, we aim to have the poems stamped that summer or fall, but often we end up stamping the following spring.”

The location of a poem depends on where sidewalk repairs and new concrete pouring are being done in the city. They can show up near schools and libraries or on residential or commercial area sidewalks. While businesses and residents cannot request to have a poem put on their sidewalk, they can opt out of having a poem placed there. However, the opt-out option has rarely been used.

Safety is a primary concern as well when it comes to the stamping of the poems in the sidewalk.

“When we started the program, we worked with the Commission for Persons with Disabilities to determine the best depth and width of the letters and ideal typeface,” Hsu described. “We do not want to create trip hazards or issues for wheelchair users. We also want the letters to be legible from the distance of someone walking on the sidewalk.”

The longer the sidewalk poetry contest continues on, the more people notice it and the more popular it seems to become.

Hsu added, “We have also received feedback and questions that have sometimes prompted us to make productive changes to the process. In addition to expanding ways to bring poetry into public spaces, we have done a number of related projects and programs, which gets the word out further. For example, poetry readings under the poetry tent of our annual river festival or at other events; large construction scrim murals designed with graphics and selected poetry lines; graphic designs incorporating poems for the risers of lobby staircases in the main library; a festival activity of steamroller printing using the actual stamps, which are inked and then used to make large printed poems using a steamroller; (and) an exhibition showcasing aspects of the program, including a video about the poems and the sidewalk as a public space.” Overall, the city has received very positive feedback regarding the program and contest.

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