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(WCCO) Public art can be a tough sell. There's the whole beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder thing, not to mention the cost of creating and installing it. That's why, like the rest of us, arts groups and cities are doing more with less.

A good example is the Sidewalk Poetry Project going on in St. Paul.

"I'm Zoe Jameson, and this is my poem." With that, the Central High School student starts reading. "Wet cement. Opportunity. It only takes a second to change this spot forever."

Zoe Jameson gets how tempting drying sidewalks can be, so she wrote a poem about it. But how did that poem end up on a sidewalk in St. Paul? The long answer is that crews mixed cement, poured it, spread it, smoothed it and waited. They stamped the poem into the wet cement, and then stamped it with their feet.

But why Jameson's poem? The short answer is that she won a contest.

"You enter in a poem that's 300 characters or less, and if you win, you get money and they put it in the sidewalk," she said.

She found out about the contest in class, entered three different poems and was tickled when one was picked.

"I'm Ryan Ross, and this is my poem, 'Steal It,'" said the 10-year-old boy sitting on a chair on the sidewalk across from his school, Expo Elementary.

"Go. Feel the rush. Speed. Take off. The Throw. The Catch. The Slide. Safe." Like Jameson, Ross was eligible for the poetry contest because he lives in St. Paul. "So I thought I would give it a shot, and I won," he said.

That's quite an accomplishment. He competed against novices and experienced poets in the blind competition.

"From 2,000 poems we picked 20 winners," said Marcus Young. "The poems will be wherever we repair sidewalk."

Young is the public artist in residence for the city of St. Paul. He's paid by a nonprofit group, Public Art St. Paul. However, he works everyday with the folks who care for the city's parks, streets and sewers. He got the idea for sidewalk poetry while walking down the street. He spotted the small stamps on the sidewalk, the ones that say who made it.

"I thought 'Wait a minute, could we take those stamps and give that space over to poets?'" said Young, "To beautify our sidewalks, that's really the simple idea."

The rest is history, or however long the sidewalk lasts.

"My name is Sean Fleming," said a teacher sitting on the sidewalk next to his school. "This is my poem: 'Said one young man to his young bride, I'm so sad my Dad just died. Let's talk of it, she softly cried. Um, I just did, the man replied.'" Fleming knows his poem won't last forever, but he's excited that it's part of St. Paul. "People, I think, are reading less and less everyday," he said, "But I think that if it's out right in front of you, you'll stop to read it."

"I'm Ann Piper, and this is my poem," said a woman while a few rain drops fell onto her sheet.

"Not like fire, nothing flaming and or even potentially a flame. Nothing caught up with danger. Nothing racing to take control or possession or no prisoners. No, our love was never like that."

Piper says her poem's about a strong, Midwestern, Lake Woebegone kind of love. A published poet with a Masters in poetry, Piper is counting on the sidewalk to do what serious literary journals can't…to reach people. She realizes Not Like Fire will likely be her most read poem.

"Probably a whole different audience, and probably a lot more readers," she said with a laugh.

The sidewalk poetry project cost $50000. The non-profit group, Public Art St. Paul, paid all the bills using donor funds and a neighborhood STAR grant.

After sidewalk repair season wraps up, Young and his colleagues at the city and at Public Art St. Paul will review the project. Depending on the feedback, there might be another contest and more sidewalk poetry next year.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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