The Middle School is alive with the sound of poetry! The spring edition of Poetry Connections recently took place for grades 6-8. “As part of a culminating—and reflecting—activity, all Middle School students have written an ode to their grade,” explained Ms. Patel, Grade 7 English and History Teacher. “We use this time to read aloud and share the odes with other members of the Middle School community.” Following the poetry sharing, there was a “gallery walk” component, for which students’ written work was placed on a table for their peers to write personal reflections in response to each poem. The MS student literary publication “Open Roads 2026,” hot off the press, was available for perusing and future inspiration.
Meanwhile, leading up to Poetry Connections, students in 7th Grade Dean Ali Miller’s Creative Writing Discovery class took a field trip to the Poets House in New York City, where they toured the library and collectively wrote a cento, a poetic form composed entirely of lines or passages borrowed from other authors’ works. They wrote a poem titled “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Butter Yellow,” based on “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens. According to Ms. Miller, the students planned to donate copies of the chapbooks they wrote and published in class to the Poets House.
