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The City of Appleton’s Department of Public Works is once again soliciting original poetry from Appleton residents and will select up to five poems to install as part of the annual Sidewalk Poetry Program.

The program, which started in 2014, transforms the city’s sidewalks into an open poetry book and creates everyday moments of open-air reading for residents by stamping poems into sidewalk squares throughout the city. 

Poems are stamped in sidewalks on city-owned property adjacent to parks and city-owned buildings as well as in residential neighborhoods throughout Appleton. A map of all current poem locations can be found at appleton.org.

All residents of Appleton and students of the Appleton Area School District are eligible to submit their original poetry. Applicants may submit one poem per year. Poems must fit within a maximum of 10 lines, 35 characters per line including spaces and 225 characters overall including spaces and be appropriate for the general public.

Poems must be submitted by February 19 to [email protected]. Selected poems will be announced on March 17.