Dallas – Now open for entries beginning today, September 22, 2025, through November 7, 2025, the Dallas “Sidewalk Poetry Project” is a poetry-centered public art installation that commemorates the historical significance of twenty-eight locations throughout the city of Dallas and provides opportunities for all Dallas residents to participate. 

“This public art project is a first for Dallas,” said Director of the Office of Arts and Culture, Martine Elyse Philippe. “We are proud to carry out this initiative that gives residents a new way to engage in our public art process and express love for our vibrant city,” said Philippe.   

Through the project, poems written by Dallas residents will be stamped into freshly poured sidewalks all across town using an accessible, new, Dallas-centric poetry form invented by Dallas Poet Laureate Mag Gabbert, called the “2-1-Form”. Each featured installation location will be chosen with a focus on equity and inclusion, and with the intention of addressing and healing past instances of harmful erasure. 

"What excites me most about the sidewalk poetry project is that it will not only give everyone in Dallas the opportunity to encounter and be changed by a poem, but it will also give everyone the opportunity to write a poem that others might encounter and be changed by," said Dallas Poet Laureate, Mag Gabbert. 

Over the summer, Dallas Poet Laureate Mag Gabbert along with 22 other Poet Laureates across the country were awarded $50,000 to serve as funding support to “undertake impactful and timely projects that engage their communities through the transformative power of poetry,” said in the press release published by the Academy of American Poets. “In addition, the Academy will provide more than $95,000 total in matching grants to twenty-one local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations collaborating with the 2025 fellows on their work,” said the press release. 

Full program information including list of criteria and information videos can be found online by visiting dallasculture.org/sidewalks. This program is made possible by the generous support of the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation.