Poetry Night at the Scott Club!

An evening of poetry reading at the Scott Club

On March 7th, my students read original poetry at the Scott Club!  We read our poems to the Scott Club members in the afternoon and then came back that evening and read to family and friends.  We had a wonderful time!  There is something thrilling about reading a poem you have written, from some creative force from within, to other people.  It's a sharing of the soul.  After we all read our poems, we took some time to autograph our work in the published booklets each adoring fan received. The Scott Club even gave us a donation, which we immediately spent on pizza for a class party on Friday!
The following is one of the many poems that was read . . .

Grandma

by Kayla

You are the happiness in the room.

You are the angelfish in the ocean.

You are the cookie in the oven.

You are the butterfly in the meadow.

You are the sun that brightens my life.

You are the first leaf to fall in autumn.

And sometimes, you can be the clown at the circus.

But, you are not the mouse hiding under the table 

or the cat looking for trouble.

I am the flower about to bloom and 

the hot chocolate on a cold winter's day.

But don't worry, you are still the happiness in the room.

Poetry is not the sort of thing you bump into at the Wal-Mart checkout.  It is not glamorous like Leonardo DiCaprio or Angelina Jolie.  Poetry is not a popular thing at all . . . and yet it quietly, and sometimes even loudly, persists.   Poetry is something like soul music.  It grabs you and it pulls you in.  It makes you feel as if maybe you aren't alone in this world.  It reminds you that love and words from the heart are more important than popularity and fame.  I think we all are poets, if we want to be, and there is something redeeming about that.  Poems from the heart reach our soul and make us believe that this world is always so much more than this world.      

Ode to my Fourth Graders

You are the caterpillar,

eating milkweed,

eating milkweed,

eating milkweed.

You are the faint smell of muddy spring 

on wet tennis shoes.

You are the sound of graphite 

flattening upon the page.

You are the light before dawn and

sometimes the dark before the rain. . .

You are the stardust in a sunbeam.

Well technically,

We are all the stardust in a sunbeam.

That being said, you are not, the calm before the storm

And you are clearly not the lizard upon my chair.

No, I am the calm before the storm and

To be quite honest,

Harold is the lizard upon my chair.

I am the bird at the feeder looking in and

I am even the question mark placed carefully upon the page. . .

But don't worry,

You are still the caterpillar

eating milkweed,

eating milkweed,

eating milkweed,

And somehow, 

the butterfly.