Halls Filled with Poetry
Lockers and doorways all around BUA this month are covered with poetry. In honor of National Poetry Month, we invite students, teachers, and staff every year to post a beloved poem. As I walked down the hall this morning, I saw work from poets I know – artists like Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Rumi, Pablo Neruda, and Langston Hughes. I came across plenty of works by poets who are new to me, too. Most of the poems are in English, but I’ve also seen pieces in Spanish, Greek, Polish, and Hebrew. There is even some original student poetry shared for all to see. I posted C.P. Cavafy’s Ithaka on my door yesterday morning. Within 30 minutes, I heard two seniors standing outside reading it out loud and discussing the poem.
This is a very special place – a place that can come together to celebrate a love for poetry; where kids want to and feel comfortable sharing their favorites and even their own work, which can be quite personal; and a place where you stop in the hallway to talk about a poem with a friend. I feel very lucky to be here and am committed to preserving this oasis of curiosity and intellectual engagement.