POETRY

"Forgive me / they were delicious"

 

        Jocye Sidman collaborated with students at Florence Scribner School to create their own anthology of poems about apology and forgiveness. This collection includes students writing an apology poem, then recieving a response poem. The poems are all written by students and faculty from the school, to show that anyone, reguardless of age, can write poetry.

 

       The inital project began when the poem "This is Just to Say" by Williams Carlos Williams was introduced to the students. The collection of apology poems within this anthology are perfect examples of how students can gain inspiration from poems that already exist. Many of the students' poems are modeled after Williams Carlos Williams's poem, but others chose to take on a poetic form of their own. Teachers can implement this exercise within their own classroom by using this a writing exercise. Students can mimic the voice, form, or rhyme sceme of the poem, like many of the writers in Sidman's anthology, and create poems of their own.

 

     This exercise allows students to improve their writing skills, build their poetry termonology, and become accustome to understanding and identifying the sensory language and descriptive words within poetry.

 

      In addition, Sidman's anthology demonstrates how students can use poetry to talk about difficult topics. Sometimes apologizing for something you did wrong is hard, and maybe you don't feel like you should apologize. By expressing these feelings through poetry, the students at Florence Scribner School have tackled an issue of communication in a creative way.