Poets offered opportunity / KWHS students wax poetic during lunchtime Poetry Café

Poets offered opportunity / KWHS students wax poetic during lunchtime Poetry Café

By KELCI GROOMS

KONK LIFE student correspondent

   A new, exciting event has begun at Key West High School (KWHS): A Poetry Café. This is a great opportunity for artistic students to show off their talent.

   KWHS Literacy Coach June Walsh explains what her inspiration was to start the Poetry Café, “I once walked into a meeting where we were asked to bring a poem and to share it with everyone. At first, many were reluctant, but we all took the stage, read a poem of our choice, explained why we read it, and afterwards the environment had changed into a more interactive, friendly, collaborative group setting.”

   Walsh elaborates, “I see many students afraid to speak out or simply stand in front of class to present. Other students sit around and write stories or poems, and no one ever gets to hear them. I reached out to Amber Acevedo, Key West High School Principal, and discussed the possibility of having a Poetry Café.  She was totally on board, and it became a huge hit.”

   And the results speak for themselves, as the event was attended by nearly 135 students. Walsh notes how impressed she was with the turnout: “Though I offered poems for students to read, students started searching for poems on their cell phones, writing their own, and sharing them out loud. I couldn’t have been more proud and excited by the student reaction to this.  When the week came to an end, I was very sad and kept thinking that we definitely needed to do this again.”

    She says that she will “definitely” continue to roll out the event as long as students keep coming, and she adds that they even needed to move the “stage” to under the pavilion in the open courtyard to accommodate all the students who wanted to participate.

    “Life is about being positive and enjoying it as often as you can,” Walsh notes. “Reading a poem is so much fun. You can read alone, have a partner or small group, but I promise you that afterwards you will be smiling, and you will definitely want to do it again. It just makes you feel good and that’s a great feeling.”

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