Rain Poetry Johnstown

It’s raining poetry in Johnstown!

PA Humanities engaged children in a number of different ways in Rain Poetry’s third stop in the state. We began by offering an online teacher training workshop to allow educators and schools the chance to participate in the project in their classrooms. We then held four in-person workshops: one for teenagers and three for upper elementary students. Under the guidance of teaching artists Aspen Mock, Denise Urban and Eric Schwerer, the students engaged with themes of growth and imagination while building literacy skills, expressing themselves in new and creative ways and seeing how their words and ideas add value to their communities.

Featured in the Tribune-Democrat (story #2) and City & State PA.

Sparking Imagination

Children’s imaginations were sparked through deep reflections on the theme of growth and its connection to personal and community development.

During workshops held at the educationally rich settings of the Children’s Book Festival at the Bottle Works and the Cambria County Library, Johnstown youth learned about the history of haiku and what makes a haiku poem. Then they explored themes of growth and change inspired by consideration of the natural world and reflected on ideas and examples of transformation and resilience. One final workshop was held as part of Bottle Works’ summer camp programming that focused on cryptid creation and storytelling. Using the inspiration gleaned from the different workshops, the students wrote their own haiku poems and got to experience firsthand the humanities as an exciting means of imaginative self-expression.

Public art professionals from the Bottle Works and Made in Johnstown then took the students’ poems and installed them on the ground at the Bottle Works and also at the library’s Storywalk with a special rain-activated solution. All it takes is a splash of water for the poems to sprout up all around as if by magic! The poems were also installed along the Storywalk itself, allowing community members the chance to stroll the Johnstown Greenways Trail while reading and experiencing the creativity of their youth, offering a unique expression of the humanities as a way to spark conversation and build community.

Featured Poems

The rain drops
Sweetens the day and
It makes rainbows

Priya W., 7

I was small
Then I grew like a
Lilac in summer

-Miller L, Grade 5

Raindrops are falling
Giving up the sky, just so
Buds can see the sun

-Aria P., 13

The birds sing their song
Acorns clink, plink on the ground
These sounds make me glad

-Tatum N., 10

I love to go out
When I go outside it’s fun
I love it so much

-LeVona C., 9

Collecting flowers
Makes me happy
They are pretty and colorful

-Tatiana M., 9

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"[Rain Poetry] merges the fine arts, humanities and nature. What an absolutely brilliant idea that poems can be hidden on sidewalks throughout a community, and then revealed and read when it rains! I even wondered if there was a way to bring it to the Johnstown Area, and then I suddenly received an email out of the blue from PA Humanities saying that Dr. Leah Spangler had recommended me to help implement the project in Johnstown!"

- Aspen Mock, Teaching artist

“The Rain Poetry project provided a chance for us to connect youth in our community to local poets, who taught them valuable language and communication skills and how to utilize those skills to express themselves by writing poetry. PA Humanities allowed us this unique opportunity to not only help our kids and teens improve their literacy skills, but to do so through a unique art form...”

- Leah Johncola, Children’s Coordinator, Cambria County Library

“It was a thrill to lead haiku writing workshops at Bottle Works and the Cambria County Library. Both Bottle Works and the library have enthusiastic staff with great energy. Johnstown kids know those are two great places to go to express themselves artistically. I'm excited to see the teenagers' and children's writing come to life as public art for all of Johnstown to enjoy.”

- Eric Schwerer, teaching artist

“My mission was to inspire the teens to write their own haikus (at the Rain Poetry workshop at Cambria County Library). I left feeling more inspired by them and was blown away by their creativity and the smiles on their faces.”

- Denise Urban, teaching artist

Events and Information

Haiku written by local children and teens as part of PA Humanities’ Rain Poetry project are now on display at the Storywalk along the Johnstown Greenways Trail and at the Bottle Works in Cambria City, and some of those poems will be invisible until they get wet!

Rain Poetry Map

Children’s Book Festival at the Bottle Works
Cambria County Library
Bottle Works summer camp

FNB Pop Plaza at the Bottle Works
413 3rd Avenue

On the ground at either end of the Storywalk and in the posts along the Storywalk itself along the Johnstown Greenways Trail (also known as the Iron Works Trail) that runs from Johns Street near Peoples Natural Gas Park to the footbridge leading to Cambria City

Haikus to hit the street in Johnstown with Rain Poetry

“It was a dynamic workshop, the students were joyfully engaged with the project and it was amazing to have them walk into a workshop and walk out as poets with a polished, publishable poem."