Sidewalk Poetry

The Friends and Foundation have supported the Northfield Sidewalk Poetry Project in conjunction with the Arts and Culture Commission since its inception in 2011.  Read more on the City of Northfield's website.

Arts and Culture Commission Announces the 2017 Sidewalk Poetry Kick-off

Northfield's Arts and Culture Commission, in partnership with the Friends and Foundation of the Library, invites the public to the Atrium of the Northfield Public Library on Saturday, January 28th at 2 pm as they honor the winning poets of 2016 and Kick-off the 2017 Sidewalk Poetry Contest. Attendees are encouraged to bring a brief favorite poem to share – perhaps one of their own.  Northfield's Poet Laureate, Rob Hardy, will be on hand to mark the start of this year's competition. Contest rules can be found on the Arts and Culture Commission page of the City website. Poems may be submitted to the contest from Wednesday, February 1st through Tuesday, February 28th, at 8 pm at the Library.  Winners will be announced in April - National Poetry Month.

On average, over one hundred poems are submitted to the contest every year.  Poems are selected in a blind judging process, in which judges have no identifying information regarding the poets.  Across the six years of the Sidewalk Poetry project, fifty-five poems have been selected and over two-hundred impressions of the poems appear in downtown Northfield and several area neighborhoods.  Forty new impressions appear in the newly constructed sidewalks along Woodley Avenue.