Watershed, environmental poetry festival, 2023 me and others reading CPITS kid poems.
What is the value of poetry?
Poetry allows us to examine our
emotions and contemplate our thoughts. Doctor poet William Carlos
Williams wrote, “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die
miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”
Wordsworth wrote, “Poetry is human
emotion recollected in tranquility.” Not that there’s much by way of
tranquility to be had during this day and age. In the process of
recollection, poetry gives shape and form and meaning to those
constantly chattering voices inside our heads, and renders them into an
art form.
What can poetry accomplish that prose cannot?
Prose is to poetry as math is to
music. You need both, but prose is analytical, expository and tends
toward the utilitarian. Poetry is like dancing with words.
Poetry gives shape to our innermost
feelings and presents them in a tangible art form that others can enjoy
and get the Aha! epiphany. The ancient Greeks dubbed poetry the mother
of all arts.
How does the Poets in the School program capture and hold a child’s interest?
Poets create a personalized,
standards-based grade level curriculum and infuse it with magic and
mystery, often marrying theatre, music and visual arts with the literary
arts.
Through the immediacy and
approachability of our lesson plans, we offer poems from the great body
of literature, as well as peer student poems as models. It’s a mirroring
process. We write our poems based on other poems.
Imagine being a student cut off from
writing about your feelings and thoughts. With the current state
curriculum standards, most student writing is expository, or fill in the
dots, and there’s no room for creative self-expression.
Then imagine these wild poets who
come along, take language, damsel it up and shake it all about. Suddenly
that stuffy poetry is equal parts theater and soap-box pulpit, coupled
with innermost feelings fueled by wild imagination. Suddenly it’s fun.
Most kids discover that writing
their own poetry is liberating, especially those who traditionally don’t
do well in school, or have trouble accessing the language arts
curriculum.
Because there’s no right or wrong
way to write poetry, it’s a place they can excel. Then, their poems are
published in a school handout or a book, and suddenly poetry matters.
Why do you do this?
As a poet, I’m a role model. I can
reach those kids who traditionally fall through the cracks and show them
how they can access their minds. Poetry creates a powerful tool for
change and self actualization.
A former student from Mark West
School, who didn’t think poetry was important, called me up at midnight
to read me a poem he had just written out of the blue.
If the program isn’t at my child’s school, how can I help bring it there?
The best way to get poetry into the
schools is through a parent volunteer, the PTA or a teacher. There are
numerous school and community funding sources that can be used to fund a
poet’s residency. We are trained to work with teachers to locate and
develop funding sources.
Contact Sonoma-Napa Area Coordinator Meg Hamill at megmariehamill@gmail.com, (415) 221-4201 or go to cpits.org.
