Pittsburgh Poetry Houses

It was only a matter of time before the Little Library idea got hijacked and starting showing up as other cool community Little House outreach. Three Pittsburgh poets, Sarah B. and Jeffrey Boyle [pictured] of Flashbang! Writing Studio and Tess Wilson, received funding from Awesome Pittsburgh to get the Pittsburgh Poetry Houses started.

The concept is simple: tiny wooden houses will be placed around town; inside will be four poems, each on its own postcard – poem on one side, artwork on the other. The poems will feature one local and one national student poet and one local and one national adult poet. Every two weeks, a new set of four poem postcards will be placed in the Poetry Houses. An archive of poems will be housed on the PPH website, and print collections (bound by a big rubberband) will be available for purchase as Summer and Winter volumes.

The current editors are also looking for readers to join their team, actively searching for “readers who are not: cis, straight, white.” Readers don’t have to live in Pittsburgh, and they should be willing to volunteer about an hour a week to the effort.

Submissions for poetry are currently being accepted, with previously published works considered. See the PPH website for full details.

This seems like another great way to share the love of poetry and reading that I hope will be as equally inspriational as the free libraries!