Chicago murals: Pilsen artist's poetry snippets are painted around Chicago and the country

You’ve probably seen her poetry by now.

Maybe it was spray-painted on the sidewalk outside a coffee shop or record store or wheat-pasted on a utility pole that you walked by. Maybe you found the words within a giant heart painted inside an abandoned, run-down building you decided to explore.

The Pilsen artist known as Boots, whose real name is Kimberly Brown, has painted thousands of her original poetry snippets on sidewalks and elsewhere around Chicago since she began sharing her words with the world just before the pandemic.

Now, you can find her painted poetry while walking through towns in all 50 states, part of a project that Brown says has “become bigger than me at this point.” All of them are tagged @poetrybyboots, which is her Instagram handle. The biggest number by far are in Chicago.

“It’s always extra special when my hometown appreciates it,” says Brown, who receives tags, photos and messages nearly every day from fans who found her work. “It still blows my mind how many messages I’ll get.”

While she has painted thousands of lines over the past eight years, there are some that resonate with a wider audience to which she frequently returns. Those include phrases like “Invest love in the ones who stay,” “We’re all damaged. It’s how we still love with a broken heart that matters” and “don’t give anyone the power to question who you are.”

Brown was featured on Good Morning America and other publications in 2022 while the country was in pandemic lockdown. Soon after that, she started selling shirts, bags and prints with her poetry stanzas on them in assorted fonts and graphics. Now, eight years after she began sharing her words, the Oak Lawn native said the hardest part is keeping the balance between staying true to her writing and ignoring the voice asking what might look good on the sidewalk or a hoodie.

The past five years “has been a whirlwind,” she says. However, “the response has been beautiful.”

Brown began sharing her sidewalk poetry while living in Los Angeles after finishing her studies at Chicago's Columbia College. She pulled lines from the poetry that she began writing when she was 12 or 13, she says, and cut her own stencils with her words. She ventured into abandoned buildings and painted them on the walls, encased in big hearts. She moved back to Chicago in 2020, and continued her work.

While fans would hold scavenger hunts to find her writing, Brown realized she wanted to share it with more than just those who enjoy exploring abandoned buildings. So she turned to the streets.

Now, Brown meticulously researches each city she visits, figuring out the best places to add her word art. She might use different color paint in different towns, or different phrases in different neighborhoods. When she visits a new city she might add hundreds of poetry verses before she leaves, she says.

She usually spray paints overnight and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

“I live and breathe it,” she says. “It’s amazing how little sleep I can live on.”