Imagine a poem stitched into a quilt that is hung in the window of the Lancaster Quilt Museum near Central Market, or an automated auditory poem activated by passersby while the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design glows in the growing dusk. Imagine poems inscribed on and in large-scale sculpture as well as custom sidewalk inserts you can follow across the city.
Poetry Paths is a public visual and literary art project founded and produced by the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House at Franklin & Marshall College with funding from the Lancaster County Community Foundation.  The goal of Poetry Paths is to bring enduring and inspiring poetry and visual art into people’s everyday lives through both poetry programming in public schools and community centers AND a city-wide public art project. Poetry Paths in the Schools and Community sponsors poetry writing workshops for three hundred children annually in Lancaster’s public elementary and middle schools.  Poetry Paths in the Streets, the public art project, will introduce poetry’s words into the Lancaster streetscape by installing art that features poetry throughout the city. Completed pieces may include sculpture, pavement inserts, fencing, street furniture, murals, and interactive pieces. The art will be installed by October 2011.
Our funders
Poetry Paths is envisioned by the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House of Franklin & Marshall College, funded by the Lancaster County Community Foundation and Franklin & Marshall College, and produced by the Writers House with support from the City of Lancaster Public Works Department and the Office of the Mayor.
