Rain haikus project reveals student poetry when sidewalk gets wet

Pittsburgh summers may be notoriously rainy, but this year there’s an advantage to a mid-afternoon shower in certain parts of the city — rain-revealed poetry to enjoy.

PA Humanities, as part of its 50th year celebration, brought a Rain Poetry project to three sites in Pittsburgh this spring. Students from Assemble in Garfield, YouthPlaces at Northview Heights and the YMCA Lighthouse Project in Homewood/Brushton participated in writing workshops and crafted haiku poems for the project. The haikus were installed on sidewalk spaces in paint that only appears when it gets wet.

Haikus are three-line poems — Japanese in origin — that consist of a five-syllable first line, a seven-syllable second line and a five-syllable third line.

“Haikus are structured. Kids at any age enjoy having some structure,” said Dawn Frisby Byers, senior director for content and engagement at PA Humanities.

Each site features poems from different age groups and on different themes. According to Frisby Byers, the third to fifth graders at Assemble wrote haikus about the future. Middle-to-high-school-aged kids at Northview Heights wrote about Northview nights. And high schoolers from the YMCA in Homewood/Brushton penned cryptid-themed haikus about the secrets of Homewood.

The writing workshops at the Pittsburgh sites were led by teaching artist Karen Howard.

Leanna Lyle, YouthPlaces site manager for Northview Heights, explained that they chose Northview nights as a theme to show the bright side of the area.

“There’s always something going on, and the negative always seems to make the news. So we wanted to bring a positive light to Northview. What type of fun things happen at night? What do you guys do that makes you smile, makes you laugh?”

Lyle said that the process of teaching and writing the haikus with the Northview students went very well. She introduced the format to them over a two-week period before Howard came to lead two workshops.

“It was the students choosing to be a part of it. … As long as you had an interest and you wanted to be there, you were able to participate,” she said.

She also said that the haiku workshops have opened up new possibilities for YouthPlaces. “After this experience we definitely want to incorporate it more often,” she said.

Frisby Byers said that PA Humanities had a few criteria in mind when they selected sites in Pittsburgh for this project. They wanted locations that had a lot of kids and established after-school programs with which they could partner. Logistically, they also needed the right kind of surface.

“The poems can only be put on relatively new and clean cement. The paint will not show up on slate or asphalt or gravel or anything like that.”

PA Humanities also intentionally chose places where kids would play and hang out. “The thing about Rain Poetry is not to put the poems downtown in the business district, but really place them in the neighborhoods in which the kids live and they play … so there’s a semi-permanent manifestation of their creativity.”

The poems will show up every time the ground gets wet. They will last for three to four months, though the paint will fade over time.

The Assemble students’ haikus were unveiled at Nelson Mandela Peace Park on May 8. Northview Heights held their reveal on May 17, and their poems were installed on Mt. Pleasant Road near the high rise. The Homewood/Brushton YMCA Lighthouse will reveal the “secrets of Homewood” haikus on Wednesday with their end-of-year showcase.

Frisby Byers said that local muralists Max Gonzales and Shane Pilster, of Do What We Love, were indispensable in making the project possible. They designed the poem layouts and stencils and oversaw installations.

“Many of the kids — especially the younger ones — are introduced to the haiku poetry and a creative outlet with a theme, and then actually see their poems in their neighborhood,” Frisby Byers said on the benefits of the Rain Poetry program.

Laughter in the night

As moths dance around porch lights

We got that on sight

– Zyanna J, age 13