Sharswood sidewalks are covered in poetry. Here’s why.
In a development project as big as Sharswood, there was a lot of cement being poured. That opened up possibilities — and a canvas.
Poetry is popping up in the Sharswood section of North Philadelphia. You can’t miss it. It’s right at your footsteps.
Shed some light, share some light
We gotta see that we are here, really here,
Standing blessed, not cursed
Tall like trees
Not stuck or stagnant and erased
We see ourselves
Stickin and stayin’, keepin and prayin’
You know
Affirm the dreams and grow
— Gwendolyn Campbell/ “Nzinga”
The poem is one of 18 resident-written verses that are being permanently etched onto the sidewalks of a neighborhood that was once one of the city’s most troubled.
Not so very long ago the site of high crime, drug trafficking, poverty and despair, the Sharswood redevelopment area is on the way to becoming a revived community of 1,480 mixed-income housing units. So far, 800 homes, both rental and privately owned, have been completed. Another 355 are nearly done.
The Sidewalk Poetry project is part of a partnership between Mural Arts Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority to ensure public art plays a vital role in the city’s $750 million Sharswood revitalization effort. And that the residents play an active role in the art in Sharswood. Many projects including murals are underway and more are planned.
In a development project as big as Sharswood, there was a lot of cement being poured. That opened up possibilities — and a canvas. The sidewalk poetry project, both intimate and inspiring, was born.
The idea of stamping the sidewalk with poems, Philip Asbury, Mural Arts’ director of community murals said, came from the “creativity and the conversations with the community.”
In a neighborhood of so many different people, channeling residents’ own words is a special and powerful kind of expression, but also a challenge.
“Some people can express themselves fully in a community meeting with all their neighbors, but some folks might need some time to sit quietly and choose their words to best reflect their thoughts,” Asbury said. “I think art in general provides a different outlet, a different language, a different medium for people to express themselves and express the sentiments of their communities.”
Enoch the Poet, a Philadelphia-based poet who operates trauma-informed creative workshops, helped bring the poems into existence. Three years ago, he led a multigenerational group of about 15 people in a poetry workshop.
The participants, who ranged from students to senior citizens, were asked to reflect on their relationship to their city, the support they felt it had or hadn’t received. Their prompts were flower pots. They were asked to imagine the flowers that might have grown there, and write.
“Some people felt very empowered by the city and thought that the city had a lot to offer,” he said. And others did not, like one young man who felt supported by his friends but not his city.
“He had mentioned how there isn’t a lot of love in the city, even though it’s considered the City of Brotherly Love”
Yet, what struck the poet is how most people still had a real affinity for their city.
“To have a room full of people with all these different experiences ... but then also still have a very shared foundation of wanting to be a part of the city and wanting see the city do better, as opposed to wanting to leave,” he said, “I thought that was very heartwarming.”
For now, 18 poems from that workshop will be stamped onto the sidewalks of Sharswood, with several already completed. PHA president and CEO Kelvin Jeremiah said he would be willing to do more.
Some of the poems reflect the experiences of people who lived in the neighborhood at times when crime was high, hopes were low, and rebirth wasn’t even on the table. Yet they survived to tell their stories, even flourished, Jeremiah said.
That’s a reason for pride and an inspiration for the new Sharswood residents coming in.
“When you read the poems, you’ll see the so-called Philly grit and the resilience of people who inhabited certain spaces and places. It’s quite telling,” Jeremiah, who likened the poems to Shakespearean sonnets, said.
“Philly living is hard,” another poem goes, “But I like that it’s made me tough.”