Wall Poems (
Dutch: Muurgedichten, alternatively Gedichten op muren or Dicht op de Muur) is a project in which more than 110
poems in many different languages were painted on the exterior walls of buildings in the city of
Leiden, The
Netherlands.[1][2][3]
A guide available on the web describes a walking tour for visitors to Leiden that takes in 25 of the 101 poems.[6] The first 43 poems have been collected in a book by Marleen van der Weij, Dicht op de muur: gedichten in Leiden, and the rest are described in a second volume, published in 2005.[7]
Based on the success of the Leiden poetry project, wall poems have also been painted in several other Dutch cities.[8][9] In 2004 the Dutch embassy to
Bulgaria launched a similar project in
Sofia,[10] and in 2012 the Tegen-Beeld foundation collaborated with the International Society of Friends of Rimbaud to paint a poem by
Arthur Rimbaud, "
Le Bateau ivre", on a government building in the
6th arrondissement of Paris.[11]
In 2012 a poem by
Marsman was painted on a wall in
Berlin.
Publications
Marleen van der Weij: Dicht op de muur. Gedichten in Leiden. Gemeente Leiden, Dienst Bouwen en Wonen, 1996.
ISBN9080139580 (2nd ed.: 1996, 3rd ed.: 1997). 6th, rev. ed.: Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden, 2000.
ISBN9075089082 [Description of the first 43 poems].
Marleen van der Weij: Dicht op de muur 2. Gedichten in Leiden. Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden, 2005.
ISBN9075089112 [Description of the poems 44-101]
^Dienst Bouwen en Wonen, Leiden, 1996, reprinted 2000 and 2005 by Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden; see
worldcat. A second volume, published in 2005, (Dicht op de muur 2) describes the poems 44-101.