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Done! We presented our sidewalk poetry idea.  Now we wait. 

12/5/2016

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On Dec. 1st, three English students from Western and I presented to the London Arts Council (LAC) our idea to stamp poems in fresh cement as it’s being poured in sidewalk repairs. The interest seemed to be there so we went away cautiously excited. Of course, the people responsible have to spend some time going over it, thinking and talking about it, before they can decide. 

Andrea Halwa, LAC executive Director, Rachel Pennington, its Public Art Specialist, and Tom Cull, London's LAC-appointed Poet Laureate, listened as the three third-year English students made the presentation they had researched and written. 

Jennifer Ball (L in the photo), Leizel Rafanan and Noelle Schmidt did the work as part of Professor Manina Jones' class "Canadian Literature, Creativity and the Local". 

After the presentation, Andrea Halwa cautioned us about some of the difficulties, but the three of them, especially Poet Laureate Tom Cull, seemed quite positive nevertheless.

The presentation included discussion of some of the methods, processes and costs from the St. Paul, Minnesota project, which has been stamping poems 2008, with over 700 impressions in its sidewalks now. It also included ideas of our own, the results of a petition the students circulated, and a number of letters of support. 
​

Jennifer Ball (L), Leizel Rafanan and Noelle Schmidt are getting a first-hand view of how poetry can be propagated outside of campus. They’ve been doing research, making petitions, asking for letters of support, refining the idea and writing the proposal.
​
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Sidewalk poetry...London is just the beginning.

11/25/2016

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​If the city of London goes for our sidewalk poetry idea Dec. 1st, it will be a first for Canada, and a model for other Canadian cities.

I expect we would put together a comprehensive information package containing everything other cities would need to know, based on our experience.


http://www.londonpoetryopenmic.com/news/sidewalk-poetry-gearing-up-for-the-presentation




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SIDEWALK POETRY: Gearing up for the presentation!

11/23/2016

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In preparing for our Dec. 1st presentation to the London Arts Council (LAC) of our idea to stamp poems in fresh cement as it’s being poured in sidewalk repairs, I’ve been working with three very industrious 3rd-year English students. They hail from Prof. Manina Jones’ class called Literature, Creativity and the Local. Together, we’ve been surging forward at high speed.
 
Jennifer Ball (L), Leizel Rafanan and Noelle Schmidt are getting a first-hand view of how poetry can be propagated outside of campus. They’ve been doing research, making petitions, asking for letters of support, refining the idea and writing the proposal.
 
Yesterday we met with Joel Barton, a former member of Manina’s class who is now, by chance, a member of the LAC board. He gave us an idea of what a good presentation consists of, as well as the kind of information we should know, much of which we had not thought of.
 
Here’s what we have now, going by what the St. Paul, Minnesota version of our arts council told us of their experience, and from injecting our own ideas:
 
LAC would set up a yearly city-wide contest for people who would like to get their poems imprinted. Of probably five poems selected each year, two or three might go to the city’s grade 11 and 12 English students. The rest would go to anyone else. A  panel of volunteer judges, composed of poets, English profs, etc. would select the winners. (The first contest in St. Paul brought in more than 2,000 poems.)
 
One of our own ideas is that a committee of gung-ho volunteers, responsible to LAC, would be set up and have as its prime function keeping the city excited about the project from year to year. It would also select the panel of judges.
 
Once the poems are selected (all short ones, of course), they would be turned into stamps. In St. Paul each stamp is designed in terms of font, letter size, etc, then the letters are cut from plastic and built onto an aluminum frame, five frames per year. A stamp supervisor, in his own van, follows the repair crew from one repair site to the next, making sure the cement is of the right consistency, and stamping in the poem. If there were, say, one hundred repairs made in a year, at random locations, then each poem would be impressed in the sidewalks twenty times in twenty random places before it is retired.
 
City office staff would organize and co-ordinate. Other than setting up the contests and promoting them, they would liason with the committee, and also make sure all residents near each repair would receive advance warning via flyers so they could refuse to have a poem in front of their residences if so desired.
 
The finishing touch would be a map added to the city's website with locations of all the poems so citizens could plot tours by car, bike or foot. Additional information about the poems, poets and the project would be included.
 
Jennifer Ball has taken responsibility for gauging citizen enthusiasm for the project. She made up the petition as well as a draft letter of support. Please make use of this letter if you would like to support the idea. Just sign it as is or use it as a template to write your own. And please sign the petition below, if you haven’t already.
 
Thanks, Stan Burfield
organizer,
London Open Mic Poetry
 
 
 
Below is a draft for a letter of support for the Sidewalk Poetry Project. You are welcome to edit, modify, use this as a template, or write your own letter to suit your thoughts and perspectives. We ask that letters include your signature if possible. If not possible, no problem. You can return the letter to us, by e-mail. If you have an electronic version of your signature saved, you can copy and paste it into the letter and then send it (but if you don't, no worries--send it with your typed name and email address); or you can print it out, sign it, scan it and send it. We will include your letter in the appendices of the proposal document. Thank you for your support.
 
 
Dear London Arts Council,
 
 
I am writing to show my support for the Sidewalk Poetry project proposed by the London Open Mic Poetry organization. I believe that this is an exciting creative project that will benefit the community of London in many ways.
 
The project offers an opportunity for the city to support literary culture throughout all areas of the community. It opens new doors for engagement with poetry for all demographics, making it accessible and adding a new dimension to readership. The project will help develop interest in poetry for younger generations by bringing it into their lives outside of the dictated school atmosphere, and allowing them to discover poetry on their own terms, making it a part of their lives as they read the same poems regularly while they grow up. The project will also foster community involvement in the arts, and offer poets the honour of making a lasting impression upon their city.
 
I believe that this project is an excellent opportunity for this city, and I eagerly await the chance to witness it unfolding in the future.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
 
 
(If you want to use regular mail (must be received by Nov. 30th), send it to me and I will include it in the documentation at the presentation:)
 
Stan Burfield
Apt. 1104-112 Base Line Rd. W.
London ON
N6J 1V4
 
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION HERE.




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PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION (to have the city stamp poems in sidewalks)

11/17/2016

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I'm very excited that we're finally approaching the actual presentation to the London Arts Council of this idea to stamp poems into the city's sidewalks during repairs. However, it isn't a given that they will institute it, no matter how much we may like it, as it will cost something. St. Paul, Minnesota, which was the first city to begin doing this, back in 2008, told us it costs them about $20,000 a year. So we need to show the city there is a desire for it here. Please help us by signing this petition. We will present it, along with our project proposal, on Dec. 1st. Thanks, Stan.
Go to the petition.
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THIS WILL BE THE SEASON OF SIDEWALK POETRY

9/22/2016

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​Those of you who have watched the stop-and-start progression of the idea of sidewalk poetry for the last couple years may be relieved to know that during this 5th season of London Open Mic Poetry there will be four people working on it, so that now I can guarantee that the idea is definitely going to be refined, thoroughly researched, a proper proposal written and then, finally, the submission made to the London Arts Council (LAC). 

Three energetic young students of Manina Jones' third-year class at Western, "Canadian Literature, Creativity and the Local", have volunteered to pour themselves into the project as part of their class work, and because they are very enthusiastic about the idea. 

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the idea is to get the city to stamp poems into the city's sidewalks as they are being repaired with new cement. An annual city-wide contest would decide on a few poems to be made into stamps each year for all that year's repairs. The poems would then be pinpointed on a map on the city's website. Citizens could use it to chart a route between poems, for a foot, bicycle or car adventure. My own motivating fantasy is that a child on the way to the bus or school would step over and look at a poem every day, and, as the years passed and as the child's mind developed, it would gain new insights into the deeper meanings in the poem, which would then become a part of the person's entire life, and poetry would become one of the pleasures of the grown adult. 

The three students working on the project are (in alph. order) Jennifer Ball, Leizel Rafanan, and Noelle Schmidt.

We will keep you informed of progress, and hopefully keep you excited about the project. Let's face it; the more support we have, the more likely it will be that the city goes for it too.

Photo: This is one of over 700 impressions of nearly 50 poems in the sidewalks of St. Paul, Minnesota, the first city to institute this idea, and, as far as we know, the only one. During their first year, 2008, over 2,000 submissions were made!
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London Open Mic Poetry is suddenly evolving!

4/19/2016

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We are in the process of making a radical departure from our past.

We have always been a single-event organization 
run by a single organizer. But during this month, April, 2016, which is coincidentally National Poetry Month, we are breaking out of that mould, becoming a multi-event organization with each event run by its own organizer.

And now, instead of the one central organizer trying to plan every detail, which is only possible to a certain extent, at least without causing seriously debilitating anxiety, he is stepping back to allow others to take over the planning of their own spin-off events

This relaxation, openness, and "spontaneous" growth of new events and poetic happenings could continue indefinitely, as more people become aware of us, are excited by the possibilities, and create their own ideas. And the more that poetry becomes a part of the landscape of London, the more people will begin to see it everywhere, and not only throughout the city, but also in the community-building social media. Poetry could become the fashionable art of London.

It would follow that this rapid growth in quantity (as we create more spaces for poetry, and so excite more people) could provide a rich breeding ground for changes in quality as well.

Thanks to an idea by Frank Beltrano, we will launch a series of readings in the Chapters book store near the White Oaks Mall, probably in May. At each monthly event, organizer Andy Verboom will be pairing one of the featured poets who has earlier read at our four-season series at Mykonos Restaurant with a lesser-known poet who has not yet been published in book form. Andy is in the process of working out the format but it will include readings by each poet (a longer one by the featured reader), some form of conversation between the two, and of course questions from the audience. These new organizing ideas are so exciting that we may try to adapt them to the larger stage at Mykonos.

We are launching an E-journal, wherein each month the open mic readers at our events will publish one of the poems they read that month (if they would like to), along with a photo of them reading it. Also, the featured poet's three poems, interview and bio would be included, and possibly those of the poets reading at that month's Chapters event. The organizers (publishers, editors) of this publication are Koral Scott and Christine Ellwood.

Our already-announced series of Guerrilla Poetry readings in the central library (if it goes as planned) will have a spin-off in the Chapters book-store near White Oaks mall. It will be organized and hosted by Brittany Renaud. (The original series in the central library down-town is launching this Saturday, April 23rd, at 2 pm.)

London Open Mic Poetry is rapidly changing from a Mykonos event series into an umbrella organization. It now has eleven members. Projects that have been put off for lack of people to run them may soon be launched by new people who may want to work with us in the future.

For instance, we need someone to head our Prison Poetry project, a woman (since it would be in the women's prison in the Kitchener area) who has the time, the energy, the right expertise, and who has experience dealing with institutions.
We need people to try to start workshops and possibly open mics in other long-term care institutions.

We need someone to promote with the city our idea of having city workers stamp impressions of poems into side-walk areas as they are being repaired. This has been done successfully in St. Paul, Minnesota.

We need people to carry out our dream of exciting the city's high-school English students in poetry, possibly by means of a city-wide contest.

As London Open Mic Poetry grows in size, its abilities are also growing. For instance, we now have a social media expert on board, Koral Scott, who is reorganizing our presence on the internet to make it more effective.

We're open to people and their ideas. We're no longer just imposing our own.
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Stan Burfield Interview

2/4/2014

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Interview with Stan Burfield, organizer of
London Open Mic Poetry Night 


Interview for The London Yodeller (Jan. 31, 2014 issue) by Jason Dickson,  writer, novelist (three novels published to date), and bookseller at Attic Books.

J.D.   What inspired you to start a reading series?

S.B.   Shyness! That may sound contradictory, but it’s not. My wife and I sold our flower shop and moved to London in 2008. I decided it was finally time to do something about my shyness, which had caused me endless problems all my life. I had tried to deal with it before by going on extremely difficult adventures by myself, to toughen up, so to speak, but I eventually realized that did more harm than good. So now, being semi-retired and having more time, I started going in a social direction. I joined a poetry workshop, then tried to read my poems in front of others when I had the chance, which wasn’t easy, to say the least. Anyway, I accumulated a couple poetry friends and we went to an open mic reading in Sarnia. On the way home I wondered why they could have a monthly open mic in the town of Sarnia and there wasn’t one in London, which is so much larger. The answer was simply that someone had to organize it. My two friends didn’t have the time, And I thought there was no way I could do it because of my shyness. But then, on second thought, what the heck, if I don’t do something drastic now, at 61 years of age, I never will. So I took the bit between my teeth. How did it work out for me as therapy? Well, now, after our first one and a half seasons, I can get in the elevator in our building and CALMLY chat with people as we go up. For the first time in my life.


PictureJason Dickson
J.D.   Where was the first night held?

S.B.   They’ve always been at Mykonos Restaurant. A local poet, Frank Beltrano, showed it to me as a possible venue. I had been searching through dingy bars and so on, and as soon as I saw this place I knew it was perfect. It couldn’t be improved upon. In good weather it’s a large square terrace open to the outside at the back. In winter it’s enclosed and well-heated. Beautiful Greek atmosphere. The tables hold up to 65. (We’ve been averaging about 45 lately.)

J.D.   Tell me about the first night.

S.B.   Well, that was extremely stressful for me because I had to host, not just organize it, as I do now. (Our current host, the very confident Dawna Perry, hadn’t joined us yet.) Anyway, I did manage to get through it. We opened with a half hour of music (Bernie Koenig on vibraphones and Emma Wise, cello--what a combination!), followed by Andreas Gripp doing a feature reading. Then a musical intermission, and after that the open mic. It went well.   

J.D.   How did you promote it? Was there a good attendance?

S.B.   Well, I started out just Googling how to organize an open mic, then set up a website, then looked for poets to feature. I decided they had to have at least one book of poetry published. I think it was one of these poets who suggested I needed to have a Facebook page, so that was next, (and what a lot of work that turned out to be). Then I looked for all the places I could list the open mic for free, mostly online. Which I did. And finally made posters and put them around. I was surprised when 47 people turned up at the first event. For poetry, that’s a pretty good turnout, no matter how large your city is. 

J.D.   Why a published book? Why not a free-for-all?

S.B.   Well yes, it could be a 100% open mic. That’s about as close as we could come to a free-for-all. And that is one kind of poetry event for sure. In a big city like Toronto you could get enough attendance with that. But here you would find that some poetry lovers and poets -- any percentage is too high in a small city -- would only come out if they felt sure there would be at least one reader there they could learn from. I mean many of us who love writing poems are amateurs, like me for instance, in the sense that we love to be creative with words, and are good enough at it that it pleases at least ourselves. But poetry is like any other art; There are the Picassos and Mozarts, and then there are us dabblers. By having a featured poet, followed by an open mic, we can at least partially satisfy most everyone. Anyway, when I started this thing, I just made up this simple rule: To be a featured poet you have to have published a book of poems. I didn’t realize then that it’s next to impossible for a poet, no matter how good, to get published by a commercial publisher these days. There are far too many poets and very little market. And, on top of that, suddenly the internet came and took a huge cut out of what little there was. So nearly all poets are self-published now. The problem with that is that anybody can be self-published. So now I can see that this doesn’t really work as a criterion. I and the people on our organizing committee have reluctantly had to become judges to some degree.

J.D.   Tell me about some of your favourite moments so far. What has stood out for you?

S.B.   Favourite moments? There are so many. There are poems I`ve heard, from both the featured poets and the open mic readers, that have astonished me. And you never know when it`s going to happen. 

And all the poets are so different from each other. After a season and a half, I'm amazed at how different all these really good poets are from each other. And their poetry as well. Completely different. Well, it`s exactly the same with the open mic section, but much faster. Each person has five minutes. And you never know who`s getting up next. You just begin to get used to one poet`s character, clothes, look, reading style, and poetry, and then that person sits down and a totally different one gets up. It`s like that for an hour and a half. You don't even have to be into poetry to get a kick out of the variety. The thing is, in those few minutes you don't just see the person visually, as we do with most people we don't know, but from their poems you get a deep picture of their lives and who they really are inside, as well. I love it.

J.D.   Where is the series now, in your opinion, now that it has been going on for a while? What are your plans for the future?

S.B.   Now it’s beginning to fulfill one of its original purposes, which was not only to provide a place where local poets, and poets from the region, could read their work -- to fill that gap in the city -- but also to help form a community here. Due to the nature of the art, it’s easy for poets to find themselves working, and being, alone in their rooms. Thanks to our events, and our website, they’re at least starting to recognize each other. Some of them. They’re seeing each other’s abilities and styles. Some are being affected by others. Some are talking to others. 

Earlier in the series, most featured readers would just read that once and you would never hear them again. But lately, more and more of them are coming back, sometimes to read at the open mic. And many really good poets who have never yet been featured are also becoming known and appreciated from their open mic readings. During the last few events, the open mic section has really begun to shine, to come into its own. It’s becoming very exciting, and more open. Maybe people are just relaxing and getting used to it, but I think part of it is a growing enthusiasm. Also new people are always showing up, eager to take part.

My latest idea is probably the best I’ve had personally. It’s a result of always being aware of probably the only little negative at poetry readings, which is that you only get to hear a poem once. You can’t go over it the way you can in a book, and really get deeply into it. I keep trying to solve that problem, and this idea is one attempt. It’s to get the city to stamp poems into the sidewalk when they make repairs with wet cement. If they did, it would expose poetry to a lot of people who would never get into it otherwise, including children on their way to and from school. The number of poetry readers and writers would go up instead of down as it has for so long. Well, I Googled it. One other person has had the same idea, and consequently St. Paul, Minnesota has been stamping poems into their sidewalks for five years now, totalling over 700 impressions. So I made an initial presentation to the London Arts Council before Christmas and they were very enthusiastic. They want me to present it to City Council as soon as I can get it together.

J.D.   Tell me about Frank Davey's involvement.

S.B.   I think it was Andreas Gripp who told me that Frank Davey was now living in Strathroy, part of our local territory. Frank is one of the most well-known and influential poets in Canada, considered to be THE poet who introduced post-modernism to the Canadian poetry scene. I asked him if he would consider being our headliner at our April National Poetry Month event. He agreed and we met for coffee to talk about it. Just as we were leaving the cafe it occurred to me that I had nothing to lose by asking if he would be interested in having a blog on our website. Well, It was a very lucky coincidence that right then he was in the midst of retiring from his lifetime work asf editor and publisher of his hugely influential critical literary journal Open Letter. And he hadn’t decided where to go from there. I told him I would support his blog to the utmost of my abilities, so he went for it. That blog has become a huge part of our website. About half of our readers come because of it. Anyway, Frank didn’t stop there. He has come and read at our open mic, and even joined our organizing committee. And one of our big ideas still sitting in the background came from him: the possibility of starting a publishing collective. Maybe, maybe not. If it did happen, it would be a separate thing from the open mic organization. We’re very slowly mulling it over.

J.D.   Finally, what role do you see the series playing in town? Where does it fit with, say Poetry London or the literary efforts at U.W.O.? 

S.B.   Without us, there is a huge poetry gap in the city. Poetry London, which I attend nearly every month and really enjoy, mostly brings in poets from elsewhere. It does a lot for the poetry audience here, but little for the poets. Likewise, the literary efforts at UWO are fairly insulated from the rest of the community. But we are there for everyone. The poetry lovers and the poets of the whole city. And area. We want to bring everybody together, to be an event they can all own. This next event, on Feb. 5th, is our first attempt to really involve the UWO community. Instead of having one feature, we are having four, all senior poetry students. They will do at least three rounds of poems. In the first round their poems will all contain the same three lines, and will be written expressly for this event. It should be fun. 


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An Initiative for the City of London: Sidewalk Poetry

1/10/2014

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This idea came out of London Open Mic Poetry Night, but it applies to the City of London, not to the open mic itself.

As such, I made an initial presentation to the London Arts Council before Christmas. They were very enthusiastic and want me to present it next to City Council in hopes that it might be adopted and put into practice. 


Since we started the open mic/reading series, the one aspect of it (and of any poetry reading) that I always felt didn't quite work was the transience of each poem that’s read on the stage. Most poems are written to be read on the page, not the stage, at the reader's pace, with no distractions, and allowing the reader to refer back and forth within them at will. But at a live reading the pace is unchangeable, there are many distractions, and the listener can't refer back and forth. This necessarily makes the poems more difficult to appreciate, at least to the kind of depth, sublety and detail that most good poems expect of their readers. 

At London Open Mic, we've done two things so far to try to alleviate this problem. First, I started putting a batch of the featured reader's pre-published poems on the internet in advance of the reading. Readers can discover something of the poet's writing ability and style, at least, and usually a couple of those poems will actually be in the reading, so they can be studied in advance. Then one of our committee members, Erik Martinez Richards, got the idea of having the entire reading videotaped and put on the internet. This we’re now doing. It’s a big jump in reducing the transience of a reading, probably the maximum jump possible. 

Nevertheless this problem is always on my mind, and a while ago, when I was looking at the poetry website from the little town of Cobourg over on the other side of Toronto, a poetry town if there ever was one, I read of a new idea they’re using that got me thinking. On the sidewalk in front of their poetry cafe the featured poets write one of their poems in chalk before their readings. I liked the idea but of course immediately thought about how quickly that transient chalk would get scuffed and rained on and be unreadable. It occurred to me that the poems would be 100% better if they were stamped into the cement as it was poured. 

The more I thought about this the better the idea seemed: poems as part of our sidewalks. My favourite fantasy about it is of a child walking to the school bus every day and stopping to read a poem in the sidewalk. And reading it again coming home. And again and again. Slowly getting more of the depth and mystery that's in it. Until, in some of these students, the poem would one day reveal itself in a burst of revelation. And the children would then become addicted to poetry. And the arts. And culture. And creativity. And might one day become poets themselves. A few of them. 

And, at the same time, poetry would become a bigger part of the culture of the city. Instead of a smaller part, as has been happening in our society for a long time now. It might even be the deciding issue that would prevent some of London’s young people from leaving for Toronto.

Well, I thought this is such a good idea that I couldn't possibly be the first person on the planet to think of it. So I Googled it. And sure enough one other person had. The idea had occurred to marcus Young in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota one day in 2008 when he noticed a cement company's name stamped into the sidewalk. Already holding a city position, as “Artist-in-Residence", Marcus Young, was able to influence St. Paul’s equivalent of our London Arts Council to take up the idea, with the result that the City of St. Paul adopted it as standard practice five years ago. 

In the process, St. Paul has gone through all the trial and error we would have to otherwise. It has worked out all the kinks, figuring out how to implement it so it really works, not just one time, but every year into the future. It knows the costs, how it should be organized, everything, even down to how to make the stamps.

Here’s how they do it:

Every year they hold a poetry contest and pick five poems. During their first year they received over 2,000 submissions. (And St. Paul is a smaller city than London.) Seven of the city's poets went through them all, selecting twenty for that first year and then five each year after that. 

In the beginning they decided that stamping poems into just-poured concrete had to be made a standard part of the process of sidewalk repair by city workers. Workers are constantly repairing single or double squares of sidewalk all over the city. So part of the job, one of its last steps, became stamping a poem into the wet cement. At the beginning of each year the five stamps are made in 2X4 frames on plywood, with 3D letters attached. Each poem gets stamped a fifth of the times repairs are made around the city that year, in random places. St. Paul now has 43 different poems in it's sidewalks, with a total of over 700 impressions. 

On the City of St. Paul website, there’s a special page for the sidewalk poems, which includes all of the poems, bios of the poets, and, most importantly, a Google map with a flag for the location of each poem. People can make themselves a route to walk, bicycle or drive over. It’s a new event for the city, but a unique one: any person can do it any time they want to. 

As Marcus Young said in his introduction on the website, the city of St. Paul has itself become a book of poetry. 

At the moment, I’m talking to St. Paul officials about getting more information from them about their program. I’ll present that to the City of London. Hopefully they will adopt it. If they do, everybody in the city will have an equal chance to accidentally become enthused about poetry. 

See Sidewalk Poetry in St. Paul



Stan Burfield,
organizer, London Open Mic Poetry Night
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