Smith Middle School and Jones-Clark Elementary students gathered for a collaborative night of presenting poetry to their peers. 

“Poetry Night originated last year with my pre-AP English scholars. They were just as eighth-graders are, not interested in the project I had come up with,” said Reading Language Arts Instructional Coach Barbara Henry. “Therefore, I gave them the opportunity to come up with one and Poetry Night was born.”

Scholars prepared and read original works and special pieces using the knowledge they had learned in their English courses. New this year, the Smith poets invited Jones-Clark students to join them for the event. 

“The purpose of this event is to provide a platform that embraces all age groups to come together to celebrate and highlight poetic artistic expression through live readings of original or favorite works,” said Henry. “One of the most important takeaways from having this yearly event is bringing together as many scholar poets from the middle and elementary schools to foster community and collaboration.”

Henry plans to continue to host this event annually and expand the event to welcome more campuses.