Celebrate Sidewalk Poetry At July 18 Reception And Reading

Meet Winners and Runners-up of 2022 Sidewalk Poetry Contest

Rain Update July 18: We will be holding the reception tonight for “TRA•VERSE,” an exhibition highlighting City's Sidewalk Poetry program at Cambridge Arts’ Gallery 344 at the City Hall Annex, from 6 to 8 p.m. We'd originally planned to hold the event both indoors and outdoors. If it becomes too rainy, everything will be moved indoors. To reduce the spread of Covid, the City of Cambridge and Cambridge Public Health Department continue to strongly recommend that residents wear masks when indoors outside the home and when around others.

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Celebrate the City of Cambridge’s Sidewalk Poetry program at a Free reception for “TRA•VERSE,” an exhibition highlighting the literary program at Cambridge Arts’ Gallery 344 at the City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, second floor, Cambridge, on Monday, July 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. (rain date July 25). Launched in 2015, each spring Sidewalk Poetry invites Cambridge residents of all ages to submit their poetry for a chance to get their words stamped in concrete as part of the City’s sidewalk repair program. At the reception, see the exhibition, hear a reading, take home a poem, sample free ice cream.

Our “TRA•VERSE” exhibition, designed by Rick Rawlins, with video by Carl Tremblay, was installed in Gallery 344 in early March 2020 and was designed to celebrate five years of the Cambridge Sidewalk Poetry Program. But closures to stem the spread of covid shut the gallery down the day after the exhibition debuted. The exhibition has been extended through the end of August 2022, and it’s finally time to give it a celebration.

The free July 18 reception will take place inside and outside—view the exhibition inside the second floor gallery and gather to hear poetry outside on the Annex plaza along Inman Street. Starting at 6:30 p.m., Sidewalk Poetry winners and runners-up from 2020 and 2022 will read their poems, facilitated by Peter Payack and Jean Dany Joachim,

Guests will also be able to choose one of the 20 poems from 2020 and 2022 to have it stamped onto a drink coaster to take home. The stamping process will be inkless and mimic the sidewalk stamping process.

An ice cream truck will be next to the plaza offering free treats.

For more information on the exhibition, go to: https://www.cambridgema.gov/arts/publicart/gallery344

The Sidewalk Poetry Contest is a collaborative project of the Department of Public Works, Cambridge Arts, and the Cambridge Public Library.

This year's chosen poems confront anti-immigrant bigotry, mull the surprises of aging, celebrate writers’ voices and creativity, observe life along our sidewalks, and call for an open-hearted tenderness that includes “the man living in the tent / On the concrete between the buildings.” Read them at https://www.cambridgema.gov/arts/Programs/sidewalkpoetry/2022sidewalkpoetry.

2022 Winners:
Jane Attanucci
K. Householder
Jillian Murphy
Aelen Unan
Rachel Weinstein

2022 Runners-up:
Amy Bebergal
Judy Bright
Brianna Davis
Nancy Messom
Chloe Viner

At the core of the Sidewalk Poetry program is access and opportunity—providing opportunities for more people to freely experience poetry and more writers to share their work. The Sidewalk Poetry Contest is a collaborative project of the Department of Public Works, Cambridge Arts, and the Cambridge Public Library.

The 2022 Sidewalk Poetry winners—plus five runners-up—were chosen in March from 252 entries contributed this spring by Cambridge residents from across the city. Entries were reviewed by a selection committee, assembled with the help of a public call for jurors—the first time we’ve issued a public call for jurors for this program. Its members included Betsy Groban, Madeleine Holzer, Jean Dany Joachim, Daisy Lu, Peter Payack, Dhonyale Jones of 22-CityView, Jen Letourneau of the Department of Public Works, Drew Griffin from the Cambridge Public Library, and Hilary Zelson and Lillian Hsu from Cambridge Arts.