Invisible poems, visible joy: Johnstown celebrates Rain Poetry

By Karen Price

Eight-year-old Priya Wayns turned the watering can upside down and sprinkled the sidewalk outside the Bottle Works Ethnic Arts Center in Johnstown.

Like magic, once invisible words appeared as the water hit the pavement.

And not just any words, but her words.

“The rain drops

Sweeten the day and

It makes rainbows.”

“I love it,” her mother said as Priya walked around the poem she wrote now installed on the ground for the community to see, admiring her work. “Good job, baby.”

Wayns was one of dozens of children who participated in PA Humanities’ Rain Poetry project in Johnstown this spring and summer. On Saturday, Sept. 14, the community celebrated the young poets and their work at a special event where they had the opportunity to read their poems aloud and reveal the words hidden underfoot.

Johnstown was the third stop of this statewide literacy and community engagement project created to help celebrate PA Humanities’ 50th anniversary. PA Humanities sponsored haiku poetry workshops at the Children’s Book Festival at the Bottle Works, which included children from Flood City Youth Academy, as well as Cambria County Library and as part of Camp BW Summer Programming at Bottle Works. Teaching artists Dr. Aspen Mock, Eric Schwerer and Denise Urban led children and teens in discussions about growth in nature and in people, then the youth wrote their own haiku poetry inspired by the topic. 

Leah Johncola, children’s coordinator at the Cambria County Library, said the project helped children and teens improve their literacy skills through a unique art form that’s now shared with the community in a fun and engaging way. 

“The local poets helped the children and teens learn new relationships between words,” she said. “They encouraged them to tap into their creativity and lived experiences to become writers.  It was inspiring to watch the kids channel their imaginations.”

Public art professionals from the Bottle Works and Made in Johnstown transformed the children’s poems into colorful, temporary installations. Some poems are installed along Cambria County Library’s StoryWalk along the Johnstown Greenways Trail, running from the footbridge leading to Cambria City to the stone bridge that represents the halfway point of the trail. Families can now stroll along the Conemaugh River and read haiku poems written by local youth on that end of the Storywalk, and the book, “Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons” by Jon J. Muth on the end that runs from the stone bridge to People’s Natural Gas Park. 

Other poems are installed on the ground at either end of the StoryWalk as well as at FNB Pop Plaza at the BottleWorks. They are stenciled onto the sidewalk using a special biodegradable solution that’s invisible when dry but appears when you add water, and their location is indicated by blue raindrop decals. The spray will last approximately three to four months before fading away.

“This project is kind of magical,” PA Humanities senior director of content and engagement Dawn Frisby Byers said. “Not only because the invisible poems appear seemingly out of nowhere when it rains, but also because they draw out previously invisible experiences and create moments of unexpected communication – between, say, a young person discovering the power of self-expression and the neighbor out for a walk who suddenly encounters their words.”

The Johnstown Rain Poetry project follows a launch in Philadelphia in 2023 and installations in Pittsburgh this spring. PA Humanities will publish all the poems written at the Johnstown workshops in a book that will be given to every participating student. 

Priya, who also read her poem aloud at the celebration at Bottle Works, was all smiles as she stood next to her work.

“It was really fun, and I thought about the rain when I was doing it,” Priya said of writing poetry. “I’m going to start doing it more.”

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Haiku from Rain Poetry Johnstown

Growing, as a tree,

Stretching out my limbs and mind,

My heart to the world

— Aria P, 13 

Raindrops are falling

Giving up the sky, just so

Buds can see the sun

— Aria P., 13 

Dangerous lions and tigers

Are predators to other animals

They better watch out or else they will be eaten

— Arya, Grade 3

I love to take naps

I love to go to dance practice

I love to make food

— Ayla A., 8 

A doll’s stuffed animal eyes

It sees with its soul.

A myth not to be told. 

— Bronson R., 9 

I like milk

It is like a breeze

It’s like dandelions

It is like soft snow

— Eliza W., Grade 1

I hear them peep

A peaceful sound for baby

Chicks I have found

— Harmony, Grade 4 

Stars are shining bright

Wolf is howling at the moon

Sun is peaking up

— Isabella L., 14 

Small kids, younger minds

Bigger school, learning more

New things, on my own

— Isabella L., 14

The woods is spooky

Dark, dank, mysterious and 

Still we must go in

— Jaylyn P., 14 

The shade overtakes

Nothing can grow in the dark

But the sun shines through

— Jaylyn P., 14 

Rain pours down on me

Trying to get free from clouds.

Pit Pat it does too

— Kinsie F., 10 

I love to go out

When I go outside it’s fun

I love it so much

— LeVona C., 9 

Big sandstone boulders

Looking for hand and foot holds

My body can climb

— Luke T., 7 

At Linn Run flat rocks

I saw a mountain laurel

It was beautiful

— Lydia T., 8 

I was small

Then I grew like a 

Lilac in summer

— Miller L., Grade 5 

The water weathers me

The bright sun shines on my skin

I’m just a mere pebble

— Molli L., 16

Look at all we’ve done

But the journey is never done

We have grown so far

— Molli L., 16 

I know I’m mighty

You can not take that from me

I’m proud to be me

— Molli L., 16 

The rain drops

Sweetens the day and

It makes rainbows

— Priya W., 7 

Look at the birdies!

The birds are singing sweetly.

Croak! A frog joins in.

— Scarlett V., 6 

Collecting flowers

Makes me happy

They are pretty and colorful

— Tatiana M., 9 

The birds sing their song

Acorns clink, plink on the ground

These sounds make me glad

— Tatum N., 10 

Lots of snow

I am happy sledding

In the snow

— Zach A., Grade 2 

The Rain Poetry project in Johnstown is made possible by the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance from the 1889 Foundation Creative Health Impact Grant, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 ARPA PA Arts and Culture Recovery Program.