Sidewalk Poetry is a systems-based work that allows city residents to claim the sidewalks as their book pages. This project re-imagines Saint Paul’s annual sidewalk maintenance program with Public Works, as the department repairs 10 miles of sidewalk each year. We have stamped more than 1,200 poems from a collection that now includes 73 individual pieces all written by Saint Paul residents. Today, everyone in Saint Paul now lives within a 10-minute walk of a Sidewalk Poem.
This art project began with previous Public Art Saint Paul City Artist Marcus Young in 2008 under the name “Everyday Poems for City Sidewalks,” and continues today with evolved stamping approaches, as well as poetry submission and review processes. Our 2023 Sidewalk Poetry accepts poetry submissions in Dakota, Hmong, Somali, Spanish, and English. The poetry on our streets celebrates the remarkable cultures that make our City home and that makes our City strong. With this as a beginning, other languages may be added in years to come.
Theme of the 2023 Sidewalk Poetry Contest:
The 2023 Sidewalk Poetry Contest is inspired by the theme of our Wakpa Triennial. For this contest, we ask writers to reflect on “Network of Mutuality” from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, and the Dakota philosophy of Mitákuye Owásiŋ, meaning “all my relations” or “all my relatives.” What do these expressions of interconnectedness mean to you?
2023 Sidewalk Poetry Curators
Kevin Yang is a Hmong American spoken word artist and documentary filmmaker from the Twin Cities. Kevin works at Twin Cities PBS as an Education Engagement Specialist, where he connects educators with media resources. Kevin represented Minnesota at the Brave New Voices Spoken Word Festival in 2011 and represented Hamline University at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational in 2012 and 2014. Kevin’s work has been published on platforms such as Button Poetry and in the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura, Editors (University of Minnesota Press, 2021).
Marian Hassan is an empowering educator and children’s picture book author. Marian’s work is all about children, and books, and about reading and writing, and talking. As an educator, Marian advises, mentors and trains lots of folks about areas in early childhood education, family literacy, program development, evaluation, coaching. Lately, she has been speaking to dual language families and teachers about the importance of the home language to the development of the second language. As a writer, her love of literature began at an early age listening to relatives tell Somali tales, a natural backdrop of the rich oral culture of her native Somalia. She is the editor of a recently published anthology, Crossroads, An Anthology of Resilience and Hope by Young Somali Writers; and the author of the soon to be published the ABC’s of Peace, A Somali Lullaby, Bright Star Blue Sky and Dhegdheer: A Scary Somali Folktale. Marian earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University in Canada in English Literature and Mass Communication and has done graduate work in Elementary Education as well as a K-8 teacher licensure with specialty in Language Arts at St. Thomas University.
2023 Sidewalk Poetry Jurors
Fong Lee is an artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a celebrated poet, with publications through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, and Asian American Writers Workshop, a beloved painter, and a published photographer. Fong and his family immigrated to the U.S. as Hmong refugees when he was a child, after his family was displaced from their borrowed home in Laos.
Thressa Johnson is a Minnesotan poet and pre-school teacher. She has three books published through Beard Poetry and has both competed and coached slam poetry on a national level. Thressa believes in bubble baths, breathing deeply, and being unapologetically herself.
Aesha Mohamed is a Somali author and multidisciplinary artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota. She released her first poetry book (Love) letters to, Him in May 2022 and hosted her book launch in August 2022 with over 200 attendees. Aisha is currently working on her second book slated to be out in the fall of 2023. She debuted her first solo exhibit “A Moon Shall Rise From My Darkness” in January 2023 at the Soomaal House of Arts. Aisha’s love for expression through writing and art is her way of sharing her experiences and, in doing so, she hopes others may find connection and inspiration through her work.
Tanagidan To Win (Tara Perron) is a Dakota and Ojibwe mother. In 2020, she wrote Takoza Walks with the Blue Moon Girl, Animals of Nimaamaa-Aki, and Animals of Khéya Wíta. These indigenous children’s books are language books. Tanagidan To Win works with plant medicine and creates a variety of indigenous arts—moccasins, drums, rattles, and medicine bags. She was a 2021 Sidewalk Poetry Contest winner.
Michael Kleber-Diggs is 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022 Balcones Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. Michael’s essay, “There Was a Tremendous Softness,” appears in A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, edited by Erin Sharkey (Milkweed Editions, 2023). His poems and essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies.
PARTNERS
Public Art Saint Paul
Saint Paul Almanac
Mayors Office
City of Saint Paul
City of Saint Paul’s Department Public Works
FUNDERS
Public Art Saint Paul and Sidewalk Poetry are supported by are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Opportunity Grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Sagirah Shahid is an African American Muslim poet and arts educator from Minneapolis, MN. She is a recipient of a mentor series award in poetry from the Loft Literary Center, a Minnesota Center for Book Arts mentorship award, and Twin Cities Media Alliance’s Our Space is Spoken For, a public art and performance fellowship for Black, Indigenous and artists of color. In 2019 she was a writer-in-residence for Wisdom Ways, Unrestricted Interest, and 826 MSP. Sagirah’s poetry and prose have been published in Mizna, Paper Darts, Juked, Winter Tangerine, The Drinking Gourd, Puerto Del Sol, American Muslim Futures virtual exhibit, and A Moment of Silence an online anthology of 50+ Black Minnesotan voices responding during a historical moment of transformation. Sagirah’s debut collection of poetry “Surveillance of Joy” is forthcoming from Half Mystic Press in 2021.
Tou SaiK Lee, a spoken word poet, hip hop artist, teacher, and community organizer, based in Saint Paul. Tou SaiK and his brother, Vong, perform together as the dynamic hip hop duo called Delicious Venom. He has engaged in intergenerational collaboration, having performed many times with his grandmother, Youa Chang (now deceased), who performed the traditional art of kwv txhiaj (Hmong poetry chanting). They formed the duo called Fresh Traditions. In 2009, he received Intermedia Arts VERVE Spoken Word award. Lee was featured in the 2015 full-length, international hip hop documentary, We Rock Long Distance, by Justin Schell. This year, he will release his first Hmong language hip hop album, titled Ntiaj Teb Koom Tes, which translates to “Unified Worldwide.” Tou SaiK is writing a memoir about his collaboration with his grandmother to honor her passing, titled My Grandma Can Free Style. In 2016, Tou Saik was a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, using the fellowship to travel to Thailand to connect with his Hmong culture, stories, and song. Today, he uses the arts to encourage cultural identity and pride in youth in the Frogtown neighborhood.
Mark k. Tilsen is an Oglala Lakota Poet Educator from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He comes from activist families long steeped in the struggle for liberation for all people and the long term survival of the Lakota Nation. At Standing Rock he stepped into the role of a direct action trainer and police liaison. Those stories have been compiled into a book of poems titled It Ain’t Over Until We’re Smoking Cigars on the Drillpad.During the pandemic Tilsen has worked with Camp Mniluzahan providing shelter for unhoused relatives in on Lakota land near Rapid City SD
STORIES (Flexible Press 2018) and HOME (Flexible Press 2019). Her book of testimonials of Maya women NEVER AGAIN A WORLD WITHOUT US: VOICES OF MAYA WOMEN IN CHIAPAS, MEXICO (EPICA 2001 has been used as a text in academic settings. As a spoken word artist, Teresa has performed in many venues throughout the Twin Cities, and participated in Festivals such as Festival de Calaveras, InMigration, Erotic Poetry Open Mic, Open Streets, and many others. She has facilitated poetry workshops for youth and adults and for over a decade she has been working in Adult Basic Education, educating generations of new immigrants to Minnesota.
