Alderperson Hartzheim Expresses Interest In Making The Sidewalk Poetry Program Selection Process More Public

The City of Appleton is currently accepting submissions for its Sidewalk Poetry Program. The city will pick up to 5 poems to be stamped into the sidewalk in various locations around the city. The deadline is February 18, 2022.

Public Works Director Paula Vandehey mentioned this during the 01/24/2022 Municipal Services Committee meeting. She said the news was posted on the city’s website and Communications Coordinator Sheng Riechers was also going to post about it on social media, but they would also appreciate the alderpersons’ help in getting the word out.

Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked if the poetry selection process could be moved to the Public Arts Committee and mentioned that she had had some constituents express some concerns about one of the poems they had seen in District 13. She wondered if the program might benefit by involving more public input.

Director Vandehey said that currently the committee that chooses the winning selections is made up of city staff, a resident, a known poet, and a member of Appleton Downtown Inc, so she felt that the committee had good cross-representation, but if the Council wanted to approve the poems or have the selection process go through the Public Arts Committee, she was fine with that.

In light of that discussion, I reached out to Alderperson Hartzheim for further details.

The poem in question was selected in 2021 and had been written by a then 8^th grade student at Einstein Middle School who, in the poem, questioned her gender identity.

The residents were concerned not about the poem per se but about the choice to stamp it into the pavement at a park. Alderperson Hartzheim explained in her email, “They specifically expressed to me that, had they brought their young children to an art museum (for example) and this poem were present for their children to view, they would have felt better equipped to have a gender identity discussion with their young children, knowing that they had purposefully exposed their children to the potential for some art which might lend itself to difficult discussions.  However, having this poem blatantly present at a public park did not sit well with them as they had presumably come with their children for play and instead were faced with answering some perhaps difficult questions of their children from a simple visit to a city park.”

She went on to say that, in regards to the Sidewalk Poetry Program, “there is really no avenue for public discussion and input on the poems chosen and/or their placement.  I believe that there should at least be an open and noticed meeting in which the poems selected by the program’s judges (city staff and now, apparently, a local poet or two) are available for public discussion before the selection process is complete and the poems start to be stamped in replacement sidewalk squares throughout the city.  My thought would be that this should be done through the Appleton Public Arts Committee.”