On Thursday, May 17th, at 7pm, Writers in the Schools (WITS) students will share their art-inspired creative writing at the Menil Collection. This reading, called The Watchful Eye, will feature stories, essays, and poems that come out of a collaborative project called Writing at the Menil. The event is free, and the public is welcome.

Cy Twombly "Untitled Parts III and IV" 1988

I feel the sorrow going through my veins

as I jump into the pond.

I sink, the crystal clear tree

reflecting in the lake.

I fall with my joyless life,

sink and sink into the green.

I land on a fish. We

swim into an underwater land.

My sorrowful face turns

joyful, like finding a smiling pot of gold.

There is no hole in my heart anymore;

gray rainy clouds suddenly break

into blue, a gold flaming sun.

by Malia, 4th grade

Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Jasmin Rubio, a 4th grader from Parker Elementary in Houston.

This poem is featured as part of the 2012 A Poem A Day campaign, a National Poetry Month celebration by Writers in the Schools (WITS) that features a different poem by a WITS student every day during April. Click here to learn more.

ARTlines is a juried competition organized by Public Poetry in collaboration with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). Nine works of art were selected by the MFAH curatorial staff, and the competition invited poets to submit original poems inspired by these artworks.

The winning poems will be showcased at an event at 3:00 PM in the Brown Auditorium at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Saturday, April 21, 2012, and will also be featured in audio recordings, print and electronic media. The five judges, as well as some acclaimed, nationally recognized poets, will be invited to present ekphrastic poems as well.

Additional information about the competition winners and Saturday, April 21 event is available here.

• Child’s full name
• Child’s age & grade if applicable
• Parent or guardian full name AND if this is a class project, the teacher’s name
• School attended (if not applicable write home school)
• Contact information so that we may contact you if you win:
• Two phone numbers OR one phone number and an email address

Landscape sketch (Photo credit: Johan92100)

Today I am different.

As I view an ant on a gentle leaf,

I feel as if I am strangely different.

I feel like the ant is normal, like

doing homework.

The paper would be a magnificent landscape

with ink and lead to be its grass and trees.

As the grass grows, the pencil works harder and

the same for shimmering green trees with

the red and fiery cardinals.

The spring brings flowers up like me on

a trampoline, the winter brings snowflakes like

a man that is parachuting, the summer brings

the sun like a giant fireball, and the fall

brings leaves like a blockade of fiery arrows.

As this beautiful paper world grows, I become

more unlike my past self. This is

always meaning that when my imagination

grows, everything grows with it.

By Alex, 5th grade

Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Helen Huneycutt, a 4th grader from Parker Elementary.

This poem is featured as part of the 2012 A Poem A Day campaign, a National Poetry Month celebration by Writers in the Schools (WITS) that features a different poem by a WITS student every day during April. Click here to learn more.