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.
Kingsessing Avenue
The men sift the ash of an incinerated Victorian
For the clink of coin or cufflink,
Some remnant in the wreckage
One might don or exchange once more.
Embers of dandelion
Are dimmed as the slow breeze spreads
Soot along the block, to porches, sills,
Soft gray clovers of cats’ paws.
Header Photo: Flickr/Blake Bolinger