This Word Salads project was a component of Meetinghouse Arts' Our Town: A Community Self Portrait project, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

For nine months, from November 2023 through August 2024, two collection boxes were deployed around Freeport for individuals to write a word or phrase that comes to mind when thinking about the people, places, objects, traditions, and activities that exemplify what is meaningful and unique about Freeport, Maine. Nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, place names, etc. were all encouraged. One box was stationed at the Freeport Library for the entire project, while the other moved around town. Submissions were transferred to various colored papers and artfully crumpled, torn, and furled to fill a large vessel. Additional submissions were created directly on the colored papers and added to the salad.

Over the nine months of the project, at a variety of locations around Freeport, people were able to serve themselves a small bowl from the growing salad; unfurl the leafy papers; place them on the provided composing surface; and arrange them into a phrase, sentence, or poem. These poetic creations were documented and the ingredients were then tossed back into the salad.

All of the community based poems resulting from all of this word play are compiled anonymously here in this book. They are numbered in the order they were created for a total of 101 community poems. We have not altered any poems. Upper and lower case letters in each word are as they were written for submission to the salad. A few poems include extra line spacing to follow the original layout and reading of the poem.

These tossed together, seemingly random, often poignant, entertaining and poetic representations offer a unique community portrait!

Net proceeds from the book go to support Meetinghouse Arts, Freeport, Maine