Poetry Festival!
Poetry Festival schedule of events.
This week, Madison High School is celebrating poetry. The annual Dodge Poetry Festival, made possible by the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Program, kicks off on Monday and lasts throughout Tuesday; for these two days, Madison students will find poems everywhere they look. From the hallways to the classrooms, poetry will infuse every aspect of the school, an attempt to give teens a way to connect to poetry and to create their own. In an effort to make poetry more relatable, poets are scheduled to visit several Madison classes, performing their work and that of artists they respect as well as talking about their experiences in the arts; after, students will have the chance to write their own poems.
Poetry Festival aims to make poetry accessible. So, students will also have the chance to send each other poems. During lunch, a sign-up sheet is available in E Hall, along with a varied selection of poems to choose from, as well as the option to write your own message. The poems and messages will be delivered during the receiving student’s English class, and cost nothing to send. Reflecting the spreading enthusiasm for poetry among the student body, over twenty poem-grams have already been ordered. “Poetry is dope,” senior Doug Witte notes. “It’s like rap music without the music.”
Poetry Festival is only the latest marker of poetry’s growing popularity at Madison High School. After forming and the school’s first-ever Poetry Club, senior Denny Harrington placed in the top four in the statewide Poetry Out Loud competition, beating out thousands of other high schoolers. “Thoughts don’t always have words,” freshman Jane Taylor comments, fresh off her poetry recitation at the last Glyphs Coffeehouse. “Sometimes they’re more emotions that can’t be explained. Having poetry allows me to give them words and meaning.” This week, Monday and Tuesday mean more than the end of the weekend; they mean a chance for Madison students to learn to express themselves more fully, meaning their words and wording only what they mean.