Arlington has been waxing poetic during the pandemic, first through the inspiring series of Red Letter poems circulated by Town Poet Laureate Steven Ratiner, then by the  multimedia collaboration of Walking Poetry installations on the bike path by visual artist Adria Arch and poet Jesse Brown, and most recently, on the sidewalks of the Cultural District.

This fall, the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture is installing a series of haiku originally collected during a 2018 project, Bikeway Haiku, which sourced the short Japanese-form poems from town residents on themes inspired by the Minuteman Bike Path. In a project conceived  by town Public Art Curator Cecily Miller, The poems were selected by Committee of three poets – Charles Coe, Grey Held, and Gloria Mindock – and stencils were laser cut by artist Liz LaManche.

This latest incarnation makes use of additional public-sourced poems colorfully stenciled onto the pavements on both sides of Mass Avenue, extending from Alewife Parkway in East Arlington through “the Gap” of the Cultural District toward historic Arlington Center. Some poems celebrate local wildlife and the natural environment, while others are odes to commonly encountered Town scenes, from biking to watching a dog sniffing during walkies.

Additional poems will be installed in other locations throughout October, kicking off a season of a multiple new public art installations in the town.

See ArtsArlington.org for more about townwide public art happenings in Arlington, an interactive cultural map, and other free resources for visitors, artists and arts-related businesses and organizations.