This past Friday (April 20, 2019) KYMN Radio’s premier arts and culture show, ArtZany with Paula Granquist, featured 2019 winners of Northfield’s Sidewalk Poetry Project. The entire show can be accessed through the link above.

This ninth contest was a watershed year for Northfield’s project.

The American Academy of Poets has honored our program by including it in the 2019 Event Spotlight, along with links to the text of all the Northfield Sidewalk Poems, the map of poem sites, and Paul Krause’s documentary.

Here are some excerpts from the Arts and Culture Commission press release:

“The Arts and Culture Commission (ACC) of Northfield, in partnership with the Friends and Foundation of the Library, is pleased to announce the winners of the City’s ninth annual Sidewalk Poetry Competition: DEJA TU HUELLA / MAKE YOUR MARK. Chosen from among 126 poems submitted for judging, ten poems have been selected for imprinting in city sidewalks. In the first year of opening the contest to submissions in Spanish, three such poems have been selected by the judges, with seven English poems among the winning entries.

“The five contest judges were drawn from across the community, representing the colleges, the City, the community, and published poets. Judging was completely blind, in that judges were provided no identifying information regarding the poets. Judges were: Diane LeBlanc, Director of Writing, St. Olaf College and a published poet; Angelica Linder, Northfield Library Outreach Coordinator; Becky Boling, Carleton Spanish faculty
member and published poet; Joel Olson, Northfield Schools Activities Director; and Rob Hardy, published poet and Northfield’s Poet Laureate.

“The winning poems will be on display at the Northfield Public Library and City Hall, posted on the Friends and Foundation of the Library and City websites, and shared with local media. Beginning in the spring and continuing through the summer, poems will be installed in City sidewalks, as weather permits.

“This project is funded by the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) through the Arts and Culture Heritage Fund, as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature, with added support from the Friends and Foundation of the Northfield Library.”

Over the nine years of the program, more than 1,000 poems have been submitted. A total of 81 poems have been selected from 54 poets. To date, there are more than 200 impressions of poems in Northfield sidewalks.

Mark your calendars now for the ninth annual capstone celebration at Bridge Square: Thursday, August 29 at 7:00 p.m.!

Sylvan
      for James Peter Danielsen
  
 I have it now,
 my great-grandfather’s axe.
 Once upon a time,
 he was a woodcutter
 in the Old Country.
  
 Still a young man, he came 
 to Oneida County
 to swing his axe
 as a lumberjack
 in the Northwoods.
  
 When I knew him, 
 in the Paper Valley
 of the Fox River, 
 he was retired from the mills.
 He had silver hair,
  
 well-cut suits, 
 a gentle smile,
 His Danish vowels flowed
 musically like a spring
 brook over smooth stones.
  
 We called him Grandpa Jim.
 He married Mae late,
 she with blue eyes as cold
 as the Danish sea, a tongue
 sharp as a switchblade.
  
 I don’t have his blood,
 or his slender, elegant bones.
 Just this axe, and its echo
 ringing to fell green trees, and
our shared reverence for paper.
  
 Leslie Schultz