Searching for the soul of the city
Inspiring Cities Museum of CityPoems
01-01-2004 /views: 6841 in past 12 months.
React - Forward - Rate
Inspiring Cities has collected many citypoems over the years, as well as organized salons with citypoets and cities doing special projects. We have two criteria for what a citypoem is: the intention must be poetic, and it must be in the public realm of cities. Shapes, form and locations can and do differ. The Museum of CityPoems has citypoems from cities all over the world. From Alhambra to Zonnebeke, from Taipei to Lima.

Inspiring Cities CityPoemsIs your city not listed below? Or do you have a CityPoem from somewhere else? Or, of course, one to add for your city?

Mail your photo and if possible description.

CityPoems in the Inspiring Cities collection so far:

  1. Alhambra CityPoemAlhambra - the oldest citypoem?
  2. Antwerp (1) - Boerentoren in love
  3. Antwerp (2) - on the river Schelde
  4. Antwerp (3) - Nasr on poverty
  5. Antwerp (4) - on 500,000 beer mats
  6. Antwerp (5) - on 30,000 door hangers
  7. Antwerp (6) - UtopiA
  8. Antwerp (7) - ZOO
  9. Antwerp (8) - train station
  10. Antwerp (9) - soul of Antwerp
  11. Amsterdam (1) - just on a door
  12. Amsterdam (2) - underneath a bridge
  13. Amsterdam (3) - Simon Vinkenoog
  14. Amsterdam (4) - subtly woven into a wall
  15. Barcelona (1) - who will help us translate?
  16. Barcelona (2) - inspiring a second Spanish life
  17. Beijing - water writing
  18. Bilston - local oral history record
  19. Brasilia Bejing CityPoem- poetry in the gutter
  20. Bristol - 600 m city as canvas by Ralph Hoyte
  21. Budapest - one sentence about tyranny
  22. Buenos Aires - Borges on the mythical founding of BA
  23. Cairo - inviting passers by in for water
  24. Cape Town - to white South Africa
  25. Copenhagen - Christensen's Alphabet
  26. Delft - where Insping Cities' CityPoems started
  27. Detroit - derilict buildings
  28. Dublin (1) - Cafe Zanzibar
  29. Dublin (2) - internet poetry
  30. Dublin (3) - community gain?
  31. Dublin (4) - Guinness
  32. Dublin (5) - commemorating the Great War
  33. Dublin (6) - only dull people are brilliant at breakfast
  34. Dublin (7) - blogger's poetry
  35. Dublin (8) - open your eyes
  36. Dublin (9) - politics or poetry?
  37. Ghent - Luck Street
  38. Glendalough - St Kevin and the Blackbird
  39. Goslar - Jenny Holzer strikes again
  40. New York CityPoemGroningen - 232 m and hidden
  41. Hamburg - 450 m2 poetry
  42. Hoorn - in the water
  43. India - on stamps
  44. Istanbul - benches like books
  45. Karachi - by the legendary Urdu poet Faiz
  46. Kyoto (1) - tanka poetry
  47. Kyoto (2) - tanka poetry again
  48. Leiden - 101 poems on Leiden's walls
  49. Lima - Parque del Amor / Love Park
  50. Lisbon - Pablo Neruda
  51. London - Jenny Holzer in cityscape
  52. Madrid - pirates
  53. Minneapolis - community art / Hafez
  54. New Town - informal poetry
  55. New York - after the 9/11 attacks
  56. Sao Paulo CityPoemNewcastle - from the film Amélie
  57. Nijmegen - poems for children
  58. Niteroi (Brazil) - the Portuguese tears the sea is made of
  59. Osaka - imperial poetry
  60. Paris (1) - who is MissTic?
  61. Paris (2) - wall poem
  62. Philadelphia - protesting against demolishing heritage
  63. Portland - Bertolt Brecht anti-war
  64. Prague (1) - Lennon wall
  65. Prague (2) - Jan Skácel, banned under communism
  66. Reykjavik - on the soul of Reykjavik
  67. Rome - Roman poet Trilussa
  68. Rotterdam (1) - mirroring the water of the Singel
  69. Rotterdam (2) - Surinam's national poem
  70. Rotterdam (3) - on waste disposal trucks
  71. Rotterdam (4) - Lucebert's neon poem
  72. Rotterdam (5) - Rotterdam's night mayer Deelder
  73. Rotterdam (6) - for the visitors of Blaak market
  74. Rotterdam (7) - on a children's hospital
  75. Rotterdam (8) - by Leopold
  76. Rotterdam (9) - haikus on the pavement
  77. Rotterdam (10) - boomp boomp
  78. Sabadell - African proverb
  79. San Juan, Puerto Rico - poetry reacting on mural
  80. San Francisco - Richard Brautigan
  81. Antwerp CityPoem 2Santiago - Pablo Neruda
  82. São Paulo (1) - De Andrade on the soul of Sao Paulo
  83. São Paulo (2) - in public drinkers, on transit, to carry out
  84. Shanghai - Pearl Tower built on poetry
  85. Sheffield - twinning with Mars
  86. Stockholm - in the asphalt of the city's busyiest street
  87. Székesfehérvár - chanting, old foot soldiers
  88. Taipei - on transformation
  89. Tel Aviv - can be read both horizontally and vertically
  90. Tokyo - who will help us translate?
  91. Utrecht (1) - arriving by train
  92. Utrecht (2) - a warm spring day
  93. Vancouver - Haircut
  94. Vienna (1) - pick a poem
  95. Vienna (2) - donaucity
  96. Wijk bij Duurstede - Marsman's national Dutch poem
  97. Zaandam - the soul of Zaandam, the Zaan
  98. Zonnebeke - architecture and poetry

Countries in the world with CityPoems in our Inspiring Cities collection so far:


create your own visited countries map

Also check the Inspiring Cities CityPoems & CityPoets Salon of 2006, including video presentations about CityPoems and CityPoets from Rotterdam and Antwerp:

   
Paul Kuijpers, CityPoet in Rotterdam                          Michaël Vandebril, CityPoets in Antwerp

   
Hans Karssenberg, Inspiring Cities CityPoems                 Jean Eigeman, Chairman

And check the review of the Inspiring Cities CityPoems.

The informal barrios of Caracas
Now tha we have seen the slums in African Lagos from the inside, what are the slums of South American Caracas like?
From Sex to Fashion in the Amsterdam Red Light District
How can you transform one of the toughest parts of Amsterdam? For the outside world, De Wallen, the Red Light District, right in the most historic par
Welcome to Lagos
Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria and the fastest growing megacity in the world. Sixty years ago, less than 300,000 people lived there. Now, it's m
The City of the Blind
In Memoriam José Saramago.
Guerilla Sunflowers
What do all sunflowers have in common? They are stubborn, they are very hard to get rid of and they will grow almost anywhere. Ideal plants for gueril
From Settlements to Cities: Ireland’s Urban Community History
In his definition of urban regeneration, Andrew Tallon outlines four key areas of significance for spatial development: i. Economic (development)