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Sanjana Sharma passes Boom Babies, a vintage thrift store, everyday on her way to class. The store’s bold, vibrant colors speak to her. When she read a poem about the shop, she felt drawn to illustrate it.

“Boom Babies was one of those businesses that I could see through the window of the bus, and it always made me smile,” Sharma, a Syracuse University illustration graduate student, said. “The (poem’s) happy tone really resonated with me, so I decided to go with it.”

Sharma’s illustration is a part of the 2025 Syracuse Poster Project collection, an annual competition for local artists and poets. Poets submit their haikus, which are then distributed to the artists, who select their favorite to illustrate. Then, a panel of independent judges select the 14 winning posters which fill the downtown poster panels along South Salina Street and Warren Street and the poster boxes outside the downtown Syracuse Post Office.

For its 24th series, the committee chose local businesses as their theme. They looked for independent shops that are fun, happy and have a special place in the city and its history. The choice to highlight local businesses was obvious, Scott Herrmann, the sales manager of the project, said.

“These places have become parts of people’s lives,” he said. “Businesses, especially when they’re small and independent, make up the fabric of a community.”

The Poster Project initiative began in 2001, after Jim Emmons, the project’s founder, noticed the city’s poster kiosks weren’t being used. They were originally added in an attempt to renovate the downtown streetscape.

Illustrator Sanjana Sharma passes vintage store Boom Babies every day on her way to class. She loved the store’s happy energy, so she was excited for the opportunity to create an illustration about it. Avery Magee | Asst. Photo Editor

After a discussion with Emmons, SU professor Roger De Muth assigned his students to select and illustrate haikus into posters as a class assignment. For nearly the next two decades, the College of Visual and Performing Arts students almost exclusively illustrated the posters.

In 2018, when De Muth retired, the project expanded to include central New York artists. Herrmann said widening the reach has given the project a deeper connection to the city, since local artists and Syracuse natives often have a stronger relationship with the area.

The union of poetry and illustration is a key part of the Poster Project, Herrmann said. Along with its ability to showcase multiple artforms and give a platform to more local artists, the union also deepens the project’s impact.

“There’s a certain art to blending text and image,” Herrmann said. “You end up with a final result that says something neither could have alone. We are celebrating the spirit of poetry, the spirit of art and the magic that happens when you combine the two.”

James Cunningham, an SU international relations graduate student, wrote his poem on a whim during class after his professor encouraged him to submit one. Cunningham helps organize music events at Funk ‘n Waffles. Inspired by his appreciation for Syracuse’s music scene, Cunningham chose The Sound Garden as the subject for his haiku.

The first line comes from the nickname Cunningham gave the city when he moved here five years ago: the city of clouds. The phrase is the title of a song Cunningham began but never finished for a television, radio and film project. After he realized it perfectly fit a haiku’s necessary five syllables, he knew it would be the catalyst for his submission.

When James Cunningham first moved to Syracuse, he nicknamed it the city of clouds. He included the name in his haiku about The Sound Garden. Avery Magee | Asst. Photo Editor

“Syracuse is a city of clouds and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Cunningham said. “It’s the music and the people that really brighten this place for me.”

The project highlights the beauty of Syracuse and its community. He wishes SU students better appreciated the culture of their city.

The poets didn’t see their corresponding posters until they were unveiled at Art in the Atrium on April 25, where the poets and artists first met. Cunningham said he was blown away by how well the poster “fit his vibe,” calling it psychedelic and trippy. It was special to him to see someone else’s interpretation of his work.

“Words are one thing: they let people imagine what they see in their own mind,” Cunningham said. “But to see what someone else saw through my words and was able to portray, it’s a really beautiful thing.”

Cameron Valvano illustrated a poem about Columbus Bakery, inspired by their bread that Valvano’s girlfriend uses to make sandwiches — what they call “the best thing you’ve ever had.” They stared at the posters for at least an hour at the unveiling, soaking in the talent and skill in the room, Valvano said. Each poster expressed the poet’s and artist’s style; no two looked alike.

Peter Allen has submitted a poem every year since the project opened to the public — chosen once in 2019 and 2020. This year, his The Art Store and Gannon’s Ice Cream poems were chosen for illustration. A Syracuse local since childhood, Allen felt a deep connection to this year’s theme. His experiences buying art supplies and childhood memories ordering at the ice cream counter for the first time inspired his poems.

“Children don’t have too many opportunities to direct their life at an early age, but at the ice cream counter, someone asks them, ‘What do you want?’ And then they’re presented with choices for the first time,” Allen said. “I wanted to convey the kind of excitement of that power that you have as a child ordering your ice cream.”

Allen hopes the posters cause people to stop in their tracks and take time to look around, stimulating their brain and taking them out of the mundane with something beautiful to look at.

“This is a pedestrian-based project,” Allen said. “As people are walking, hopefully whatever’s on their mind is suddenly paused for a moment and they’re able to take in this image and words.”

A core part of the project is the poster’s downtown location, Herrmann said. Rather than hanging in a museum exhibit, the posters are intentionally a public, community art display and an urban beautification project, reflecting the original purpose of the poster panels.

The project celebrates Syracuse as a vibrant, diverse community of artists, writers and business owners.

“We all have a love-hate relationship with Syracuse,” Herrmann said. “Syracuse gets knocked a little more than other places, but I think it’s a special place and I think it’s worth celebrating in this way.”

Published on April 30, 2025 at 11:56 pm
Contact Eliana: ehrosen@syr.edu