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Every year, Saint Paul's Public Works crews replace about ten miles of broken sidewalk. In 2008, Public Art Saint Paul and the City of Saint Paul realized that pour could publish the people who live here. 1,400+ installations later, Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk is the program every other city asks about.
It is also the reason this workshop exists. We cut the stamps — nothing more — and we want to be precise about that, because the program itself belongs to somebody else.
Public Art Saint Paul — a non-profit organization that creates and cares for art in Saint Paul's public realm — created Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk and runs it to this day: the annual contest, the jury, the selection of every poem, and the choice of every panel it goes into. They did the hard part, which was imagining that a maintenance schedule could be a literary institution.
They run it in cooperation with the City of Saint Paul, whose Public Works department owns the sidewalk replacement program, notifies the neighbors, and presses the poems into the pours its crews were already scheduled to make.
The idea came from Marcus Young 楊墨, Saint Paul's City Artist in Residence from 2006–2015, who was embedded inside Public Works by Public Art Saint Paul and went looking for the art already latent in city operations.
Those first two numbers measure different things, and the difference is the whole trick: 102 poems, 1,400+ installations. One stamp presses panel after panel, season after season, so a poem written once keeps arriving in new neighborhoods for years.
Public Art Saint Paul places Marcus Young 楊墨 inside city government as Saint Paul's City Artist in Residence — not to decorate the city, but to work within the systems the city already runs.
Young's insight was almost embarrassingly simple: Public Works already replaces about ten miles of sidewalk every year. That annual pour is a printing press the city didn't know it owned. The first resident-written poems go into the ground.
An annual contest, open to any Saint Paul resident, builds a permanent library of poems. Winning poems repeat across neighborhoods as panels come up for replacement — one poem, many sidewalks. Young describes what the repair schedule has become: a "publishing force." The program draws national attention.
Submissions are welcomed in Dakota, Hmong, Somali, and Spanish alongside English — reaching the communities that make up the largest share of the city's non-English speakers.
Public Art Saint Paul reports 1,400+ stamps in the ground from a collection of 102 poems, with Karen added to the accepted languages and QR codes on non-English stamps linking to English translations. Cities across the country have built their own versions.
This is the part other cities write to us about, so here it is in operational detail — drawn from Public Art Saint Paul's contest materials and the City's own homeowner FAQ (PDF).
Public Art Saint Paul announces contest dates on its program page and invites Saint Paul residents of all ages and experience levels. Recent years set a theme and cap poems at roughly 200–300 characters — short enough to read at walking pace and to fit a single sidewalk panel.
Owned by Public Art Saint PaulPoems are accepted in Dakota, Hmong, Karen, Somali, Spanish, and English, and read by jurors who work in those languages — a teacher, an author, a clinician, a journalist. Recent cycles have drawn nearly two hundred submissions, with a slate of a dozen or more poems selected.
Owned by Public Art Saint PaulA winning poem is set as a stamp design and approved before anything is cut. That approved layout is what gets machined, so what the jury signs off on is exactly what appears in the concrete — and the stamp goes into the program's permanent toolkit rather than being consumed by one pour.
Owned by Manufacturing partnerAs panels are marked for replacement, Public Art Saint Paul staff pick sites from what's already scheduled — typically single or two-panel jobs, selected randomly. Long runs of replacement aren't used, and the same poem isn't repeated in close proximity.
Owned by Public Art Saint PaulPublic Works mails every property on the block before work begins, with an insert explaining the poetry program. Candidate spots are flagged with a red-painted wooden stake. Residents can ask for a poem, ask about which one, or decline — as long as they say so before removal starts.
Owned by Saint Paul Public WorksInstallation happens only within the sidewalk reconstruction program — not street or utility work. The stamp presses into the fresh panel during ordinary finishing, adding minutes to a pour the city was already paying for.
Owned by Saint Paul Public WorksIn the City's own words, poems last as long as the panel goes without a defect that would require replacing it. There is no maintenance line item, no coating to reapply, and nothing to re-print.
Owned by The concreteThe concrete was going to be poured regardless. The program buys stamps and coordination — not construction. That is why it keeps outliving the administrations and budget cycles that end standalone art projects.
Every poem is by a Saint Paul resident, chosen through an open contest. The byline underfoot could be the person who lives at that address — which is what turns a sidewalk panel into something people photograph and send to each other.
Accepting and installing poems in Dakota, Hmong, Karen, Somali, and Spanish — with QR codes linking to English translations — makes the public realm legible to the people who actually live in it.
A stamp is not consumed by a pour. It comes out clean, goes back on the shelf, and presses the next panel next season — stamps we cut 20 years ago are still in use in the field. The cost per installed poem falls every year the program runs.
Dimension Sign — the Twin Cities sign shop this workshop grew out of — has cut sidewalk poetry stamps since the program's early years. We don't select the poems and we don't choose the corners. We take an approved poem and turn it into a tool a public works crew can use on a Tuesday morning without thinking about it.
Letterforms that survive concrete are not the ones that look best on a screen. Strokes have to be wide enough to release cleanly, counters open enough not to fill, and spacing generous enough to stay readable in a rough broom finish and low winter light.
Each stamp is a thick, rigid plastic plate with the poem carved into its face by a computer-guided cutting machine. There's no mold and no minimum run — the plate is cut from the approved layout, so a one-off poem costs the same per square inch as the fortieth.
Crews rinse it with water, stack it flat, and use it again the next season. stamps we cut 20 years ago are still in use in the field, and 20-year-old stamped concrete is still going strong.
Two decades of pressing words into public concrete became the designer, the proofs, and the guides on this site — so the next city doesn't have to rediscover any of it.
The program has drawn national attention and been adapted by towns and cities well beyond Minnesota — each one starting, as Saint Paul did, with the concrete it was already replacing.
Sidewalk Poetry runs on grant funding and donations — including support from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the McKnight Foundation, the Saint Paul Foundation, and the City of Saint Paul. Public Art Saint Paul is a non-profit, and the program is one of many they steward.
If you live in Saint Paul, check the program page for current contest dates. Residents of all ages and every level of experience are welcome — in Dakota, Hmong, Karen, Somali, Spanish, and English. Check the entry rules and send them a poem when submissions are open.
Program facts and figures on this page come from the organizations that run it and from published reporting. Where sources differ, we follow Public Art Saint Paul as the operator of record.
We've cut stamps for poetry and public-art programs in 17 states. Tell us your scope and season, and we'll come back with a grant-ready quote in one business day.