Frank Sherlock, former Philadelphia Poet Laureate, created Write Your Block as a way for Philadelphians to explore their neighborhoods via poetry, charting—and sharing—their communities through their own words. The result: A map of Philadelphia that is not rivers and parks and streets, but ideas and memories and dreams for neighborhoods through the people who know them best. Below, one such poem, from one Philadelphian.
Submit your own neighborhood poem here.
my neighborhoods in transition but nonone can see it that way
where with mundane & content or where inebriated & free
just down the street gentrifucation procalls the
the art and the business draw me but my pockets falt me & i go back to kensington
my neigborhoods in transition but were to boxed in to see we cant make a move when no one chooses to see
i just moved here & im happy to be
but i know in 2 years this will no longer be heavy populated by spanish decent bc the people the powers can be who want it can write a check that we cant cash so displacement & desolance will be our last meal
of our last night @ our family table
the one where my neighbors children grown from fist to navel they now attend school and soon to will move on bc we all share time but not the power to see it wrong or right bc this battle wont have a fight
bc we cant stand a chance my neighborhood is in his hands
& he wants it