Prepare to take in even more beauty when you walk through the wonderful streets of Winona!
In celebration of National Poetry Month, the Winona Fine Arts Commission announced the final selections for a new public art initiative: The Winona Poetry Walk. This project consists of original poetry stamped into sidewalks. Installation of the poems will be ongoing throughout 2020.
The mission of the WINONA Poetry Walk is to celebrate local writers, make the creativity of our residents more visible, and aesthetically and intellectually enrich our city.
The FAC requested submissions of original short poems (or parts of poems) and received a wonderful variety of responses. The first nine poems have been selected: Jerome Christenson, Chris Kendall, Lorraine Kilmartin, Steve Leonhardt, and the five former poet laureates of Winona will be included. Works from the past three Winona Poet Laureates, James Armstrong, Ken McCullough, Emilio DeGrazia and the associate Poet Laureate, Nicholle Ramsey and as previously announced, the Minnesota Poet Laureate Joyce Suptern were also selected.
In addition to their scheduled installation locations, Winona residents will have the opportunity to have a contractor borrow a poetry stamp and place a poem in the sidewalk outside their residence. The font for the Poetry Walk was designed by Winona State University Art and Design majors from Danilo Bojic’s typography class and is based on aesthetic inspiration taken from various landmarks in Winona.
The selections were judged by a panel of local citizens with expertise in the arts and poetry chosen by the Fine Arts Commission. For more information or to see mockups of all of the poems visit the new WINONArts website https://www.winonarts.com/poetrywalk