Woodrow Hall Jumpstart Award Brings Poetry to Baileys Harbor

Nancy Rafal of Baileys Harbor received a Woodrow Hall Jumpstart Award for her proposal to bring poetry into the eye of the general public in an unconventional manner.

Rafal received $400 for the Baileys Harbor Community Mural Project, which will include Lorine Niedecker and part of her poem “Wintergreen Ridge” on an outside wall of Nelson’s Shopping Center in Baileys Harbor. The project coincides with Niedecker’s work also being featured on The Poetry Trail in Newport State Park, and the 75th anniversary of The Ridges Sanctuary, the inspiration behind Niedecker’s poem.

Elsewhere in the state, Jim Pollock and the Aspiring Writers of Stevens Point won first place and $500 for a project mounting monthly haikus on the historic Fox Theater marquee in Stevens Point. Calls for submissions for the haikus will be conducted with the help of Portal Wisconsin, The Portage County Arts Alliance, the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, and local schools.

Shoshauna Shy of Woodrow Hall Editions of Madison created these awards, an offshoot of the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf initiative.

To learn more, visit http://www.PoetryJumpsOfftheShelf.com.