On Thursday, October 16, after a long day of teaching middle schoolers, I had the pleasure to continue working with the future of our Cascadian communities at Cascade K-8’s literacy night. I was joined by a variety of young students exploring literacy through different angles with other organizations like the library who believe in the power of language to change our world for the better. I, like many of the students and adults there, was following along as the Mariners dropped game 4 of the ALCS to the Jays, but my disappointment over that result was soothed by the process of creating poetry with a few really enthusiastic, silly young poets.

 

 

 

Working with poetry prompts inspired by the Exquisite Corpse, I joined with a number of students who came through my classroom for the evening to create poems together. The poetry was probably not going to win awards, but that wasn’t the point. The point was the laughter and joy that emerged in working with language with those kids. It almost got to the point where I thought I’d have to kick a few out at closing time after they argued with Mom to stay for “just one more” the 3rd time. The power of the evening was, as it so often is with poetry, between the words, in the exploration of the different ways we could break English apart, the hilarity that sometimes comes with experimentation, and the power of these devices to bring us together as a Cascadian community.