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Step Into Art: Midwest Cities Turn Sidewalk Potholes into Poetry

by Frankie (Amy) Felegy

Two light-skinned people wearing construction gear place a piece of wood over a stamp on the sidewalk.
Photo Credit: Zionsville Cultural District Facebook
Public Works staff in Zionsville, Indiana, place a fresh poetry stamp on a town sidewalk.

A simple premise—poems stamped in wet concrete—is leaving a lasting impression across Midwest cities.

Poetry really is everywhere—in love, in everyday language, in life lessons—and sidewalks across the Midwest are proving it. 

Head down a given street in certain Midwestern cities and you’ll come across (and maybe even step on or roll over) poems. 

Sidewalk poetry programs have risen across the region, stemming from an initiative started in St. Paul, Minnesota by prolific behavioral artist Marcus Young 楊墨 back in 2008. It was the first sidewalk poetry program in the country, inspired by sidewalk contractor stamps. 

“If you can print that in the sidewalks, can you print other things like poems?” he remembers thinking. “It all goes back to our universal desire that when we see wet concrete, we want to put our finger in it and just mark that, ‘I was here.’” 

A poem titled "Success" is stamped on a sidewalk with a crack running through one of the lines.
Photo Credit: Alana Horton, Arts Midwest
Artist Marcus Young 楊墨 said the public works department, which usually receives citywide complaints, began receiving thank-you letters thanks to the St. Paul Sidewalk Poetry program.
A white stamp with words on it lies in the grass.
Photo Credit: Zionsville Cultural District Facebook
A reusable stamp is ready to hit the sidewalks.
A sidewalk with yellow and orange leaves has a poem stamped on it.
Photo Credit: Public Art St. Paul
A 2023 poem in Somali by Fardousa Yossuf, stamped in five St. Paul locations, reads: My name is Fardousa Yossuf. My mother, we are neighbors. Good to meet you. I have come a long way to peace. May we see each other and fill each other’s eyes. May the winds of peace and tranquility flow over. May we share all that we have.
A poem stamped in dry concrete reads: "The sky fell on my toes and I was a fast runner."
Photo Credit: Alana Horton, Arts Midwest
A St. Paul poem offers a moment of ponder for passersby.
A light-skinned person in a baseball cap, orange shirt, and gloves lies a large stamp framed with wood on a sidewalk next to green grass.
Photo Credit: Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk Facebook
A city worker stamps a poem onto the sidewalk during yearly sidewalk re-paving.
A wet-concrete sidewalk with poems stamped into it next to orange traffic cones.
Photo Credit: Zionsville Cultural District Facebook
A Zionsville, Indiana, footpath gets a deluxe treatment: new concrete and poems to boot!

Public Art St. Paul’s Sidewalk Poetry “allows city residents to claim the sidewalks as their book pages” every spring when the public works department repairs damaged pavement. 

The premise: Invite poets to send in short poems in Dakota, English, Hmong, Somali, and Spanish; choose a handful; create stamps; apply to wet concrete.  

“It has changed a sidewalk repair program and turned it into a publishing force,” Young says. 

Since the program began, it has stamped over 1,200 poems—enough for everyone living in St. Paul to walk to a sidewalk poem in under 10 minutes.  

“Though I worry 
that everything I held true 
and firm as rock will crumble 
under my feet – I can’t 
forget: no paper, pen, or marble 
engraved can change the fact 
of my heart, the center 
of my spirit, the truth of me– 
none of this can be erased” 

KATIE CHICQUETTE, 2025 WINNER OF THE APPLETON, WISCONSIN CONTEST

A four-hour drive east lands you in Appleton, Wisconsin, with its own program inspired by St. Paul’s. The city announced five poetic winners just last week, after a community panel narrowed down submissions from nearly 100. 

“It’s a beautiful art form,” says librarian Peter Kotarba, who works with Appleton’s sidewalk poetry program. “Poetry, especially in sidewalk poetry, is permission. It’s giving people permission to feel maybe what’s in that poem, but also permission to find their own avenue of expression.” 

Kotarba says he only sees programs like these growing. He’s planning to add QR codes on signs near the poems so passersby can hear audio recordings from the authors. And he recently fielded a call from a small city in northern California looking to start a similar effort. 

“It is an opportunity for the reader to step into someone else’s world,” or even just another state, he says, “to see reflections of themselves or others around them.” 

Two feet stand next to a poem stamped into a sidewalk, reading: "A little less war, a little more peace, a little less poor, a little more eats."
Photo Credit: Alana Horton, Arts Midwest
The city of St. Paul, in collaboration with Public Art St. Paul, has stamped over 1,200 poems in city sidewalks as part of its annual sidewalk repair effort.

Young says footpaths can be—and are—more than safe transportation venues. He wanted to instill “elevated, beguiling moments” in someone’s dog-walk or commute. 

“Bring a bit of reassurance, bring a bit of comfort, a bit of delight and mystery to your life,” Young says. “Your life is, yes, this ordinary moment, but it’s also this extraordinary moment.” 

“In bonds of trust, 
our spirits blend. 
In friendship’s embrace, 
our hearts mend. 
In laughter’s echo, truly kind, 
forever cherished, intertwined.” 

MALAVIKA SREEHARI, 2024 WINNER OF THE ZIONSVILLE, INDIANA CONTEST