photo by: City of Lawrence

A Lawrence Transit electric bus is pictured in this contributed photo.

Aspiring poets in Lawrence will soon have the opportunity for their works to be featured in a somewhat unlikely venue — aboard a city bus.

On Thursday, Lawrence Transit announced a new Poet Laureate Program in partnership with the Lawrence Public Library and Megan Kaminski, a poet and professor at the University of Kansas.

The new program invites poets of any age to submit a transit-related poem by Nov. 1. Selected poets and poems will be highlighted on social media and aboard Lawrence Transit’s electric buses in 2024, with selection led by Kaminski.

“Poetry doesn’t just live in books or in quiet rooms — it lives and breathes with us as we travel through our day,” Kaminski said in a press release Thursday. “By writing and sharing our words, we connect to each other, to ourselves and to our larger communities. I’m excited to collaborate with the Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Transit to make space for the beauty and poetry in our everyday lives.”

To kick off the new program, the library and Lawrence Transit are hosting a “Summer Read and Write” workshop Friday, July 7 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. After meeting in the library’s lobby at 707 Vermont St., participants will travel aboard an electric bus through the city along Lawrence Transit’s Route 10, which runs from Seventh and Vermont streets to Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.

Led by Kaminski, participants will “find inspiration in the sights, sounds and connections” they make as they traverse the city as they write together and share their words. They’ll leave with a poem and prompts to inspire ongoing writing, as well as an invitation to submit poems for the Poet Laureate Program.

For more information and to register, visit the Lawrence Public Library’s website. As of Thursday afternoon, there are 19 seats remaining for the workshop.