Rochester Poets - Rochester Poets Walk

Rochester Poets Walk

In 2009, officials of the City of Rochester, in conjunction with the Art Walk Project, which had created an area along University Avenue in Rochester in the “arts district,” proposed an extension west along University and north and south along Goodman Street. The majority of the project would be along the sidewalks bordering two sides of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery. The relationship between the City and Art Walk deteriorated, and eventually, a new entity, The Art Walk Extension Project, was created. Two of the proposed development for the Extension were a Poets Walk, to be constructed in 2012 as a redesigned front sidewalk of MAG on University, and a Fiction Writers Walk, still in development, on the east side of the Gallery along Goodman.

Many of those nominated for inclusion in Poets Walk were poets (several of them deceased) who were members of Rochester Poets or had been honored by or affiliated with the group in some way. And many of those nominees were among the first inductees honored in November, 2011. They included: Sam Abrams, Linda Allardt, John Ashbery, Anne C. Coon, Adelaide Crapsey, Finvola Drury, Cornelius Eady, Israel Emiot, Vincent F.A. Golphin, Dane Gordon, Anthony Hecht, William Heyen, M.J. Iuppa, Patricia Janus, bobby johnson, Kathryn Jospé, Frank Judge, Galway Kinnell, Judith Kitchen, James LaVilla-Havelin, Lori D.Nolasco, Li-Young Lee. Gary Lehmann, Stephen Lewandowski, Karla Linn Merrifield, John Logan, Donna M. Marbach, Rennie McQuilkin, Eleanor McQuilkin, Marianne Moore, David Michael Nixon, Lori D.Nolasco, Beatrice O'Brien, Joel Oppenheimer, Anthony Piccione, Jarold Ramsay, Hyam Plutzik, A. Poulin, Jr., Shreela Ray, Patricia Roth Schwartz, W.D. Snodgrass, Bruce Sweet, Michael Waters, and Leah Zazulyer.