As we’ve considered what missing from the arts scene in Farmington/Farmington Hills to make it more vibrant we wrote about the need for a performing arts center to be built in downtown Farmington, along with the need for some alternative cinema options, a cool, hip, café that supports the arts, and a dynamic art gallery space (or two). 

Today we’ll consider a public arts project to add some fun and poetry to our community.

Farmington and Farmington Hills should consider a program similar to that of the Department of Public Works and Public Art Saint Paul (Minnesota). A poetry contest is held each year and the selected poems are stamped into new sidewalk repairs done in the city of Saint Paul. If we did a contest for our students imagine how thrilled the winners would be to see their poems become a lasting part of our cityscape.

The Saint Paul project was developed by Marcus Young, and he writes: On our modest sidewalks, we hope to create delightful moments of open-air reading, and make public and common the beauty in our hearts as expressed by our poets. Beautiful poetry can be as present and plain as sidewalk, as grass and sky.

We’d like to experience the simple joy of walking through our Farmington/ Farmington Hills neighborhoods and coming upon our sidewalks like a book telling the story of our community through poetry. 

Check out the video below about the project and let us know if you’d like to see something similar in our community.