In Leeuwarden you can walk across poetry. A route of more than 70 stone tablets runs through the city centre, set into the pavement. You’ll find most of them in the historic heart of the city. As you walk, you pass lines and verses by local poets and nationally known names, in both Frisian and Dutch. Pause for a moment, Pause for a moment, take in the words, and walk on: which city has anything like it?
The first ten poems were laid in September 1993, to mark the departure of mayor G.J. te Loo. Stones have been added every year since. At least half are newly written, the rest drawn from existing work. During Leeuwarden European Capital of Culture 2018, a bilingual collection of 50 poems from the route was published, available at the Afûk, Historisch Centrum Leeuwarden and Boekhandel van der Velde.
At Poëzieroute.nl you’ll find a route map showing all the tablets. There you can read each poem in Frisian, Dutch and English, and listen to it in the language it was written in.
Leeuwarden UNESCO City of Literature is a partner of the Poetry Route, together with the municipality of Leeuwarden and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
