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SUMMER
1999John Harkins
Head of SchoolWe have been writing poetry at Friends School. I believe this is a growing trend, and not just for Friends School, and I say, Hallelujah! We have seen more and more interest in poetry among our students and faculty, and in fact more reference to poetry and poets in the media.
In mid-April, Aaren Perry came to Friends School as a poet-in-residence, and the whole school was involved for a week. Aaren Perry’s poetry has been published in national poetry magazines and has aired on National Public Radio broadcasts. The residency started off with an assembly where a half dozen adults read poems, some original and some old favorites. The headliner at that assembly was, of course, Aaren Perry, who read several of his own poems.
School assemblies always present a level of uncertainty because of the age differences. Some of our students are more than twice as old as the others, and they perceive the world in different ways. Imagine the differing responses, for instance, to Teacher Chris Ritter striding through the middle of the audience declaiming Allen Ginsburg’s Howl, or Teacher Dolores reading Shel Silverstein’s rhymes.
In the days following the assembly, Teacher Aaren, as we called him, held workshops for about half of the classes in the school. Those students who worked with him had two classes plus a follow-up session to prepare for the culminating assembly. Everyone wrote poems. At the assembly we heard from dozens of student poets, reading their own original poems. Several of those poems follow, along with a poem to Friends School from our poet-in-residence.
Come and Visit | Spring Senses | I AM | Woman With Bird
Come and Visit
Aaren Yeatts Perry
Like one big holiday party
you invited me in, began
doling out drinks, good will,
gifts. You treated me like royalty, like
a holy man. But I’m not a holy man.
I’m only a poet, a man of my word.
I am Walt Whitman crossing the Delaware
everyday to my home in Camden, NJ.
I am Dr. William Carlos Williams
writing poems on the steering wheel
as I make housecalls outside
of Paterson, NJ.
I am Nick Virgilio, famous South Jersey
haiku poet, appearing on television
with my five-syllable name.
I am a first grader saying my first poem.
I am a third grader flying my diamante kite
three feet from the sun, trying out
my shimmering Limericks on my dog.
I am a fifth grader knee deep in a puddle
of spilled words trying to make sense
of chaos. I am an eighth grader in a frenzied
battle of poetic incantation.
Thank you for hosting me in your home
of learning; now I must return to my home
in the faraway exotic country of Poesia
where we dress in brightly colored Haiku
and Renga jingle around our necks and ankles;
where the streets are alliterated with crumpled couplets,
where we speak in the indigenous Tonation,
where for fun we put truth and love together
in a circle and sing songs made of wings that
we use to fly over our egos.
For lunch we eat freshly harvested onomatopoeia.
And after desserts of sweet diamantes we
ballad ourselves to sleep in makeshift stanzas.
Here we dream
of naming the unknowable.
Please come and visit me. Come and visit
anytime.Copyright © 1999 Aaren Yeatts Perry
Spring Senses
Group effort, First Grade
I love the smell of daffodils
thick enough to stuff
up my nose
I love the feel of a warm breeze
like bath water soaking
my skin clear
I love the sound of a woodpecker
hammering like tap dancers
on a stage floor.
I AM
Jessica Suplee, Eighth Grade
I am the fear of the darkness
I am the princess of my castle
I am the witch of the world
I am the snowflakes of winter
I am the ripples on the pond water
I am the beauty of a diamond
I am the stars in the midnight sky
I am the bright sun in the daytime sky
I am the fire that causes destruction
I am all that I want to be, which is meCopyright © 1999 Jessica Suplee
Woman With Bird
Matt Dolan, Fifth Grade
Many vines overtaking
an old building
condemned for many years.
I hear the rustling of leaves,
the chirping of birds, the quiet
sound of the wind washing
through the leaves.
Just behind the rusty door
of an old metal shed
I see the most deadly
snakes and spiders,
a viper behind me
hissing all the while.
Sitting in the middle
of the room
I see a sleeping woman
with a bird on her hat.Copyright © 1999 Matt Dolan
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
