On Jan. 27, an overflow crowd of fellow students, family, teachers and writers enjoyed a lively celebration and poetry reading by more than a dozen students, grades one through 11, from Washington public schools.
In my secret place
where flowers blossom
in beauty and birds
whisper, I forgive
myself for making others
angry.
Natasha Simmons, grade 7, of Hart Junior High School, reads her poem as Laurie Stroblas listens.
The student poets received widespread media coverage. Excerpts from the readings were shown on Washington television news on Jan. 27 and subsequently on NBC-TV's "The Today Show," and on the cable news channel MSNBC. The Washington Post and Washington Times carried articles, as did the Associated Press and Time Magazine for Kids. On radio, four of the young Metro Muse authors read from their poster poems on Washington's WAMU-FM, with commentary by project adviser and poet E. Ethelbert Miller; other students were featured on a segment of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
Fear is like underpants
that are too tight.
You can't get in them.
Green underpants outside
in the grass. Underpants
you don't like to wear.
Fear looked great at first
and then it got tight
around my stomach.
Make fear go away. Loosen
up.
I am running into a new year
I let the old years twirl back
Like a whirlpool.
I let it make me dizzy,
Like strong hands, like
All my old secrets and
It will be hard to let go
Of what I wrote to myself
About my friends
Seven, eleven, ten years past,
But I'm running into a new year
And the old years have passed
But finally I'm twelve
At last.
The 15 young poets attend five District of Columbia elementary schools, two junior high schools and two high schools throughout the city. Poem selection was a cooperative effort of more than 150 students who attended humanities discussions at area libraries and schools during the past year.
When I stand outside in a silent snowfall
and gaze straight up,
the snow is not floating down towards earth.
I am floating up towards heaven.
Twenty State Centers Participate in 1997 "Letters About Literature" Contest.
More than 14,000 students submitted entries in the 1997 "Letters About Literature" essay contest sponsored by Weekly Reader's Read magazine and the Center for the Book. More than 12,000 of the entries came from the 20 states where state centers for the book actively promoted and participated in the program.
In Texas, for example, where the state center cosponsored the "Letters About Literature" project with the Texas Council of Teachers of English, 98 schools participated and 2,736 students submitted essays. The winner was Thuy Le of Dunbar Middle School in Dickinson, who wrote to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, explaining to the author what Uncle Tom's Cabin meant to her -- and in particular what the book taught her about herself. Thuy Le's teacher at Dunbar Middle School is Renee Casey.
In addition to the 20 state winners, contest judges awarded one grand prize and 10 national awards. The grand prize went to Christine Varnado, a junior at Hattiesburg High School in Hattiesburg, Miss., for her letter to Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. In her letter, Christine told the author that "you taught me to see the stories in my life by telling me and the world one of the stories in yours." Christine's teachers at Hattiesburg High School are Mike Tebo and Steve Odom.
