Amy Meng, Arts and Tech Editor
@amengcourant
On March 22, more than 65 students put down their calculators and computers, heading to the Wagner Room to attend a poetry workshop featuring award-winning poet and retired English teacher Jack Powers. The block-long workshop featured brief sessions of poetry free-writes inspired by published poems of different concepts and structures.
Student participation was impressive, with numerous high schoolers volunteering to share their newly-written poems. “It takes guts and courage for students to share mere drafts that they had just written in front of a room of roughly 70 people, and it just felt like a very supportive place to be,” said English teacher Ms. Smith, who organized the workshop. “ I loved seeing students from all grades, and you don’t usually see that same collection of kids together anywhere. It really brought together a diverse community, all gathered for the common purpose of an interest in poetry.”
The workshop served as an opportunity for students to explore the world of poetry, with simple prompts that propelled creativity. “I’ve been writing poetry for the past couple of years, but I haven’t had much free time,” said Junior Rowan Hartley, a workshop attendee. Considering himself a perfectionist, the time-limited prompts posed to be a challenge that resulted in powerful takeaways. “Everything doesn’t have to be perfect. Mr. Powers emphasized warming up. For example, he based the first prompt from a random word a student chose from a book,” said Rowan.
For Sophomore Samuel Mettler, the variety of poetry prompts and example poems fueled his interest for poetry even more. “My greatest takeaway was to read more poetry. We read a lot of poems before writing, and the poets used a lot of great techniques in their writing,” Samuel said.
Ms. Smith decided to reach out to Mr. Powers due to his impressive credentials and background as a poet. “He’s got a great reputation, is a very creative writer, and a great presenter,” said Ms. Smith. “Although any one of us English teachers could run the same kind of workshop here, I think it’s very important for students to hear a different voice, and be exposed to different styles of instruction, and so Jack seemed to be a perfect candidate for that.”
High student participation, inspirational insight from Mr. Powers, and a well-organized session led to an overall successful poetry workshop. “Jack ran it really well,” said Ms. Smith. “He made the workshop very interactive, and the format was great.”
For the emerging poet, there are numerous tips and sources to aid one on their poetic journey. “The American Academy of Poets and Poets.Org are two go-to websites that I use. They feature classic poems that are hundreds of years old, in addition to celebrating the work of contemporary poets,” said Ms. Smith.
