Poetry for an hour

Thank you to the team at Two Writing Teachers for nudging me to write every day.

It is always one of my favorite hours each Fall and Spring. We all gather in the auditorium, along with parents and other members of our school community, and for an hour we share and celebrate poetry.

Even our youngest students participate. This year the entire Kindergarten recited a poem about the seasons. It was perfect for yesterday, which began as a snow kissed winter wonderland and ended with just a hint of warmth in the afternoon breeze. A First grade group shared a fun poem about ‘the h word” that left us all guessing and cringing- surely they weren’t going to say the word hate? Nope, it was homework.

My third graders learned Gwendolyn Brooks “The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves,  Or, What You Are You Are.”  They were proud as peacocks when they nailed every word of it, and got a chuckle from the audience at the end.

One of my favorite parts of this biannual tradition at our school is that parents and children also share.  This year a fourth grader and his dad shared “A Boy and His Dad” by Edgar Guest. And the director of our preschool read a poem about fairies.  The head of school’s assistant joined forces with a math teacher and a Third grader and read a poem in German, and two Ninth graders came over from the other campus to read poems from their native countries, Korea and China, in their native languages. If I had to pick one moment as my most favorite, it would be the poem/ song that our newest math teacher shared about a place in her homeland after which she is named. She read the lyrics while gorgeous photos of Cape Breton appeared on the screen behind her and the melody to the song played softly in the background. We all learned a little bit more about Breton yesterday.

It’s a special hour for our school community. I wish you could join us.