{"id":16138,"date":"2019-04-29T09:41:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T13:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.successacademies.org\/?post_type=education_blog&p=16138"},"modified":"2023-04-03T17:05:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T17:05:08","slug":"the-roots-of-a-poetry-revolution-take-hold","status":"publish","type":"education_blog","link":"https:\/\/www.successacademies.org\/education-blog\/the-roots-of-a-poetry-revolution-take-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roots of a Poetry Revolution Take Hold"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman near the front of the room had a question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taking the microphone, she gave a brief explanation of her interest in the topic at hand \u2014 the power of poetry in schools and beyond. \u201cMy organization is responsible for putting poems in the subways,\u201d she explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

The roomful of New Yorkers burst into spontaneous applause. This was exactly the kind of endeavor they had gathered to champion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Robertson\u2019s Power of Poetry event convened educators, poets, and poetry lovers to discuss an urgent issue that gets little attention: the dwindling presence of poetry in schools nationwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPoetry is so important,\u201d said Eva Moskowitz, Success Academy\u2019s CEO and Founder, as she opened the event. \u201cIt\u2019s a mechanism of social criticism, a mechanism of expressing one\u2019s identity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Poetry is so important. It’s a mechanism of social criticism, a mechanism of expressing one’s identity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From there, the crowd got down to the business of poetry. Kayla Montgomery, a sophomore at SA High School of the Liberal Arts and the youngest poet of the night, read her original \u201cAmerica\u2019s Facade,\u201d a piece about the gap between the America that foreigners see, and the one she experiences as a black teenager growing up in the Bronx. \u201cI am a piece of America,\u201d she said, \u201cyet America is the whole of me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Following her lead, acclaimed poet Sir Joshua Bennett, who\u2019s performed at Sundance, President Obama\u2019s White House, and many places in between, gave a reading of Langston Hughes\u2019 \u201cLet America Be America Again,\u201d and then his own \u201cAmerica Will Be.\u201d All three poems told stories about both the speakers individual experiences\u2019 and the nation\u2019s collective one amid a history pockmarked with segregation, inequality, colonialism, and hope.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re exploring what it means to be bound up with a nation that doesn\u2019t love you,\u201d Bennett explained, a believer in the unique, lyrical, thought-provoking avenue for this exploration that only poetry provides.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the readings, Bennett, Montgomery, and Moskowitz gathered with Dr. Elisa New, creator of PBS\u2019s Poetry in America series, and Success Academy Washington Heights third grade teachers Eunice Kim and Lori Ayanian to talk about how to make sure more students have access to that magic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you aren\u2019t familiar with the language of poetry \u2014 lines, stanzas, speakers \u2014 it can become threatening,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cWe need a national commitment to reading poetry together, without worrying about getting it right. It\u2019s not about right. It\u2019s about beauty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

New added that you don\u2019t need a lot of time or energy to read poetry in order for it to have a big impact. \u201cPoems are short,\u201d she said, \u201cand they tell us how to read them. You can wring so much meaning out of just a couple of lines or even one word in a poem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ayanian and Kim discussed how they implement \u2018Poetry First Fridays\u2019 in their classroom, a initiative across Success Academy\u2019s 47 campuses to help entire school communities fall for poetry. The most recent Poetry First Friday fell on the day before spring break, so the teachers had their eight- and nine-year-olds write about their feelings toward spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome love spring some, we learned, have allergies and hate it,\u201d Ayanian said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if they like the topic or not, it\u2019s about expressing those feelings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To help kids who may be hesitant feel more comfortable writing poetry, Bennett suggested giving them a prompt that makes the assignment feel less personal. \u201cHave them write from the perspective of a hippopotamus,\u201d he suggested. \u201cIt almost always becomes auto-biographical, but they\u2019ll feel freer to express beautiful things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. New suggested clapping a rhythm and having kids write words into that rhythm. Montgomery nodded in agreement at that idea. \u201cPoetry is like a song to me,\u201d she said. \u201cI love music, I love the way it flows, and I love that you can do anything with it. That\u2019s how I feel about poetry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That love of poetry has led her to experience the kind of lightbulb moments that give students more and more confidence in their ability to think and learn. In fact, she said, her biggest \u2018aha!\u2019 moment yet had come just that morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe read an Emily Dickinson poem in my literature class about death, and I started to recognize the deeper meaning behind the words,\u201d she said. \u201cThe poem mentions a house that swells in the ground, and I realized she meant a grave. Once I started making the connections, I felt like I understood the poem on a deeper level.\u201d She grinned. \u201cIt was an amazing feeling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post was originally published online at the<\/span> Robertson Center<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":16139,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[22,36,25],"tags":[19,288,34,372],"class_list":["post-16138","education_blog","type-education_blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-founder","category-our-friends","category-our-staff","tag-eva-moskowitz","tag-poetry","tag-reading","tag-the-robertson-center"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Roots of a Poetry Revolution Take Hold | Success Academy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Robertson\u2019s Power of Poetry event convened educators, poets, and poetry lovers to discuss the dwindling presence of poetry in schools.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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