In 2017 Sudbury’s Poet Laureate, Kim Fahner put out a call for people to submit tweet-length poems for a Rain Poetry project modelled after ones done in places like Boston – See Example. The concept was that the winning entries would be painted on sidewalks around town with “invisible ink” that only appeared when it rained. At the time Kim was encouraging people that don’t normally consider themselves poets to enter. Fellow writer and poet Vera Constatineau encouraged me to submit a fragment from one of my unpublished short stories set in Sudbury. There was a few lines that Vera and I thought stood out and so I submitted them. Much to my surprise I was accepted as one of the 6 winning entries that Fall. The other 5 winners were – Lynda Lesny, Scott Florence, Markus Schwabe, Chloé LaDuchesse, and Ignatius Fay.
Owing to the lateness of the season there was some difficulties applying the very finicky ink to the sidewalks and it was held over to the next Spring.
I was able to get a snapshot of my poem in the wild that November although its fairly faint. The text is below. Our poems were also featured in the Terra North/Nord publication which doesn’t seem to be accessible on the Greater Sudbury Public Library page any longer.
At the lake's edge oblivious to the looming smokestack couples stroll on the boardwalk a ribbon of grey trails across an otherwise blue sky -Andy Taylor
Our poems were also featured in the Terra North/Nord publication which doesn’t seem to be accessible on the Greater Sudbury Public Library website any longer.