There are invisible poems painted on Boston’s sidewalks, and you can only see them when it rains.

Local artists “painted” poetry onto concrete sidewalks using biodegradable, water-repellent spray, according to Mass Poetry’s official website. The spray is clear, thus invisible when dry.

When it rains—or when liquid otherwise gets onto the concrete—and the sidewalks darken, the words reappear.

The City of Boston partnered with Mass Poetry, a nonprofit organization that supports poetry across the state, to launch the public art project. Local artists, including students from the Lesley University College of Art and Design, cut stencils for poems by Boston-based writers, like Langston Hughes and Barbara Helfgott Hyett.


The project started in the heart of Boston and spread outward, according to Mass Poetry’s website. More recently, the artists stenciled poems onto the sidewalks in Lower Roxbury, Dorchester, and Hyde Park.

Boston Poet Laureate and Lesley University professor Danielle Legros Georges said in an interview with Mass Poetry that the project is “a wonderful way to bring poetry to the people.”

So next time it rains, look down.