Photo by Andy Schurman
Spray Painted Poems
Spray Painted Poems
If you live in the Riverwest area, you may have noticed in the last couple months short poetic messages in red paint appearing on sidewalks around the neighborhood. There are 36 of them, to be exact. This is the work of Bre Legan and their Spray Painted Poems project.
Legan, an interdisciplinary artist and poet themself, recently graduated from Marquette University in the Trinity Fellowship program with a master’s degree in communications. Spray Painted Poems is Legan’s thesis project, epitomizing their goal to bring folks together via liberatory forms of expression, explaining, “As a Trinity Fellow you learn a lot about intentional community formation and setting, and you take a lot of courses about what social justice can look like in community spaces. I had ideas buzzing around in my head of how different intersections of art and writing and community gatherings can happen—and giving poets a platform to display their work in this way felt kind of novel.”
Inspired by Instagram artist PoetryByBoots as well as decolonialist, queer and feminist theories, Spray Painted Poems was created with support from Woodland Pattern Book Center where Legan was an Emerging Poet Fellow this past year.
Conceptually self-explanatory, Spray Painted Poems’ broader mission as a project is to foster community and connection between local poets, participating small businesses and those who stumble upon the poems. After receiving submissions, Legan prepared stencils of each poem and subsequently invited each poet to spray paint their words onto the sidewalk. The poems generally contain themes of positivity and empowerment, placed in front of the businesses in order to be clearly visible in public spaces.
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Photo by Andy Schurman
Spray Painted Poems
Spray Painted Poems
Poetry Walk
It effectively starts a “poetry walk” where folks can follow and read each installment as they go down Locust Street or Center Street.
“It’s so magical how it all came together,” Legan reflects. “Woodland Pattern is a huge asset in the Riverwest community and they helped me establish connections with many of the businesses. Putting words on the sidewalk that explore the full range of human emotion was an integral part of the project because poetry is utterly specific yet entirely universal, and I wanted people to get to experience that while on their walks in their everyday life.”
Poets featured in Spray Painted Poems are Legan, Peter Burzynski, Trisha Young, Nathan Honore, Eugene Strei, Stephanie Anderson, Erin Hastings, Sophie Bolich, Tavi Unx, Aryn the Alchemist, Jorge Vallentine, Sophia J. Boyer, Eliza Woods, Jamai Fisher, Andy Schurman, Ryan Sablay, Morgan Florsheim, Chloe King, Lydia Wojcieszak, Sevan Cat Mercy, Alyx, Brit Nicole, Alyssa Schall, Emily Hall, Jill Capicchoni, D. Walk, Matthew Hill, Celeste Crandal, Joshua Hembel, Mikey Cody Apollo, Kim Shine, Ari Kohll, Elizabeth Feather and three anonymous folks.
In collaboration with artist Andy Schurman, Spray Painted Poems has been documented as a short film, which was first screened at Woodland Pattern last month. “It explores what community means to poets in the city and why these types of gatherings and spaces are so important and necessary,” Legan said about the film.
The screening featured live poetry readings and music as well. “It was some poets’ first time publicly, verbally sharing their words, which was really special to be in the room for,” Legan adds. “Jorge Vallentine played a really amazing set where we weaved his songs in with the poems; his music is centered around self-love and community love so it was a great match.”
Legan hopes to continue Spray Painted Poems in more Milwaukee neighborhoods in the future. “Art is literally everywhere,” they conclude. “By turning to a canvas that is literally walked upon and stepped on, we hope to democratize what poetry even is. It shouldn’t be some elitist branch of the literary community—poetry is for everyone.”
Visit Spray Painted Poems’ website at spraypaintedpoems.com - available is a map of where to find each poem and who’s who in terms of the poets, as well as a link to Bre Legan’s documentary.
