2020 Sidewalk Poetry
Poems about aging and youth, the love of a bookstore, about missing a lotus' bloom, morning, and driving etiquette are the winners of the City of Cambridge's sixth annual Sidewalk PoetryContest. The five winning poems will be imprinted into the fresh concrete of new sidewalks around the city.
Winners:
Anne Dane
Laura Deford
Peter Levine
Braian MacPherson and Caroleen Verly
Sarah Anne Stinnett
Runners-up:
Charles Coe
Lisa DeSiro
Elizabeth Flood
Marjorie Jacobs
Madeline LaFarge
Learn more about the program at cambridgeartscouncil.org/poetry. There you can also find a guide map to the sidewalk poems already imprinted across the city.
Cambridge has been celebrating the first five years of the Cambridge Sidewalk PoetryProgram with daily poems on Cambridge Arts social media and two projects that have been postponed due to coronavirus that we look forward to reopening when it is safe:
• "TRA•VERSE—A Poetic Journey," an exhibition about the program, at Cambridge Arts' Gallery 344, 344 Broadway, Cambridge.
• Poetry on stairs of Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge.
All of these projects grew out of a collaboration with students in the Community Design Studio at Lesley Art + Design, led by designer and professor Rick Rawlins.
The five winners—plus five runners-up—were chosen from 91 entries contributed this spring by Cambridge residents. The authors of these 10 poems will be invited to read at the River Festival. Entries were reviewed by a selection committee composed of a past Cambridge Poets Populist, and representatives from Cambridge Public Works, Cambridge Public Library, and Cambridge Arts.
The Sidewalk Poetry Contest is a collaborative project of the Department of Public Works, Cambridge Arts, and the Cambridge Public Library.
2020 Sidewalk Poetry Contest Winners and Runners Up
Winners
Stay
Anne Dane
Bookstore, I love you.
Your best sellers, your remainders,
Your used books, your staff picks.
Sometimes I read standing inside,
Just for kicks.
Don’t leave, like Pangloss, Mandrake,
Schoenhof’s, Wordsworth,
Starr, McIntyre & Moore.
Flocks of little word-birds
Flying out your door.
Double Walker
Laura Deford
After the rain, a gray-haired woman
carefully navigates the sidewalk.
Inside her, a girl in red boots
splashes every puddle she sees
into arcs of sparkling prisms.
When the Lotus Bloomed
Peter Levine
Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore
I was so distracted, tense, and busy
That I missed the lotus bloom.
Though preoccupied and hasty
I sensed something in the room—
Caught that subtle scent of longing,
That mute yearning to be still—
But I hadn’t yet an inkling
That the flower was my will.
One-Lane Two-Way Street
(AKA Ode to Howard Street)
Brian MacPherson and Caroleen Verly
Only one car fits down this street
With two permitted, two could meet
So one of the cars, it must defer
Pulling over toward the curb
Moving is only a minor detour
Faith in humanity, thus restored.
This Morning’s Reprieve
Sarah Anne Stinnett
Halfheartedly
sipping my coffee
as I
take the rim
and kiss it
slowly
before the day goes on
and on
without you
Runners Up
haiku for a new season
Charles Coe
when will it be time
for ancient angers to melt
like the snow in spring
Thirst
Lisa DeSiro
High in the night sky,
the half moon, tilting slightly—
chalice without stem.
Ah, to sip what spills
from that luminous cup, could
we stretch ourselves up!
Curvature
Elizabeth Flood
We’ve missed our turn,
you say,
as we’ve passed the corner,
and the sun dances around the spire.
But we keep walking and
arrive where we always do:
when orange kisses blue,
and the sky is dark, familiar.
Bush Birds
Marjorie Jacobs
Hidden in an evergreen,
branches shivering,
huddled together
bush birds brightly
sing their songs.
As I tiptoe near
they go pianissimo
in a call and response
heralding spring.
Water's Edge
Madeline LaFarge
On a gentle day in the midst of winter
Sun sprinkles stars of light
on the river's swirling stream.
Calmness surrounds
this speck of time
and keeps me anchored here