El mar inclinando en los ojos de mi mamá
Los ojos de mi mamá son azul como el agua.
Las olas son como la felicidad de ella.
La corriente es como su enojo.
Las rocas son la soledad.
(Translation)
My mother’s eyes are blue like the water.
The waves are her joy.
The current is her anger.
And the rocks are her solitude.
by Liliana, 2nd grade
Photo by BN catchesthelight via Flickr
“The Maple” by artist Mandy Budan
Students understand that poetry can serve as a kind a solace. Writing about a personal “paradise” puts these young poets in touch with the true meaning of home.
Photo by Kayli Rogers
If mi hermana were here
I could blow bubbles with her
She knows how to make
big, fat, round bubbles
that float up, up, up
She’s teaching me
everything she knows
about life because I’m
the little sister and she’s
the big sister and we’re
friends.
By Sandra, 1st grade
Yellow bulldozer. (Photo credit: MJ/TR (´･ω･))
I am yellow
a man who’s driving a bulldozer
an earthquake hitting the hard ground on earth
a crane with a ball that weighs 1 million tons
about to crash history
a light feeling coming from myself
I am blue
calm waves crashing
a quiet person walking
sprinkling rain falling to the ground
peaceful and quiet
I am red
lava coming from a volcano
the amber of a fire
the mad feeling of angriness
By Owen, 2nd grade
I’ve always been interested in music. One of my earliest memories was getting my first drum set. I was seven. My parents got it at a garage set, and as soon as I saw it, I was ready to start. I taught myself just by listening to music and then trying to play what I heard. When I was about 12, I started playing at school. I had to audition to play the drums. When I started, it was a lot more structured. Instead of teaching myself, I had others teaching me. I found out that I had developed some bad habits, but I still think the time I spent teaching myself was worthwhile. Over the next few years I kept improving. When I was 16, I joined a jazz band. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done so far. It’s a completely different style of playing, and it’s a lot harder. The only teacher I had was another kid. I love it. We play at the school and at competitions. I think you’re born into drumming. Only about 8% of the world has the brain capability to drum well. You have to be good at multi-tasking and being steady. In drumming the terminology is based on sound. For example, you might play a flamadiddle followed by a ratamacue. If you don’t have a good drummer, you can’t have a good band. I want music to continue to be a part of my life.
By Haden, 11th grade
We are lucky to live in a city with so much poetry action! Here is the latest announcement from our friends at Public Poetry:
Public Poetry continues in May with an exciting group of featured poets - Eric Ekstrand, Jasminne Mendez, John Pluecker and Robin Reagler. Our special guest is artist Arielle Masson. There will be a talented young WITS student, too. The Jungman Regional Library, 5830 Westheimer, 77057 (not far from the Galleria) is our library partner for this event. See you there, Saturday, May 5 at 2 PM.
Writers in the Schools (WITS) will celebrate some of Houston’s most talented young artists at its Young Writers Reading, an annual literary event held May 6th, at 3 pm at Discovery Green Park in downtown Houston. The event is free and open to the public. 
WITS Young Writers Reading event enriches the lives of students ranging from elementary to high school age by giving them the chance to read the work they have written under the guidance of a professional writer. Each student has been chosen from a juried competition. WITS publishes the best work in a bound anthology called Blooms.
The Young Writers Reading Series began in 1989 as a way to celebrate the achievements of the city’s most gifted young writers. For more information, visit www.witshouston.org.
You won’t want to miss this wonderful event at Discovery Green! Arrive early to play with our friends from Playworks Houston. Please come out on Sunday to support Houston’s youngest poets and writers!
Thank you for participating in A Poem a Day with Writers in the Schools (WITS). If you enjoyed reading these poems by WITS students during National Poetry Month, here are some options for staying in the WITS “loop” throughout the year:
We would like to thank the Houston Arts Alliance, the City of Houston, and the Texas Commission on the Arts for sponsoring A Poem a Day 2012. The following organizations distributed poetry bookmarks: the Houston Public Library, Harris County Public Library, the Houston Zoo, Houston Grand Opera, Copy.com, Houston Visitors Center, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Half Price Books, Hobby Center for the Arts, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Menil Bookstore, Museum of Printing History, Downtown Aquarium, Children’s Museum of Houston, Books-a-Million, and Hotel Indigo. Thanks to HEB Montrose grocery or Georgia’s Market Downtown for displaying poems in their stores.
A very special thanks goes to the staff at KPFT 90.1 FM, Parker Elementary School Principal Drew Houlihan, his students, their teachers, and Producer Susan Phillips for featuring the poems on the radio each weekday. You can hear each poem by clicking the audio link underneath the text.
Creativity is what makes each day yours. We hope you will stay in touch.
Photo by Tracy Clifton
I will spin you a story from the air
you breathe, each word shining
with tiny silver drops.
I will mold this story
in the shape of the clouds,
so that when you look up,
the phrases will blow in your ear.
I will spread this story through
the fierce blowing winds
so that when they rustle the leaves
you will think of your courage.
And before I leave our story,
I will share it with the sun,
so that when I leave this world,
the sun’s bright light will pass my story on.
by Sarah, 5th grade
Click this link to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Mary Phillips, a 4th grade student at 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.
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Image by donnjmck via Flickr
If there is a cat on your head
scream
If there is a feather in your spaghetti
laugh
If there are ants in your pants
freak out
If there is love in your heart
pass it on.
By Johana, 4th grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Kathryn Chavez, a 4th grade student at 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.
When we get there
the horses in their stalls
paw the dirt.
I cough in the dust.
We grab the feed,
and they whinny at me
when I pass by.
I get a brush; very tenderly
I scrape off the dirt.
They are as dusty and steamy
as a train when it chugs
down the track.
When we feed the mares,
their babies skip after us.
They run so fast
they fall.
by Isabella, 3rd grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Gabriel Arnold, a 4th grade student at 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.
I block
the feelings that beat
against my shell.
I have beauty inside me
longing to be shown
to the world.
I am stiff with
the emotions that swirl
in my body.
I watch the butterflies
dance around me
with flaps of pride.
When it rains, I show
my shiny shell to the
lady called the flower.
She drops a warm petal on me
to show that we are no
different in soul.
For what would life be
without soul?
It doesn’t matter
what you have within,
only the soul matters.
As the sun’s rays hammer
into me, my beauty
faintly shows.
I am a rock.
by Ioana, 3rd grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Thomas Girardet, a 4th grade student at 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.
I wish I was a super hero so I could fly
to see the earth,
to fight evil
so I could help the world.
Maybe I could be rewarded with something
if I fight the most dangerous evil villain.
I could be defender of my city,
and the most famous hero in the world
and everyone would know my name!
by Edwin, 2nd grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Ella Dale, a 2nd grade student at 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.
Former WITS writer Stacy Parker Le Melle, who now lives and works in Harlem, will visit the San Jacinto College (SJC) South Campus for two important events on April 26. Before teaching with WITS, Le Melle served for five years in the Clinton White House as an intern in George Stephanopoulos’s office and as an assistant to Paul Begala. She also worked as a presidential advance person, planning presidential visits abroad to places such as Abuja, Ho Chi Minh City, Okinawa, New Delhi, Ankara, Cologne, Merida, Tokyo, St. Petersburg, and more.
Le Melle’s memoir Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House (Ecco/HarperCollins) was released to critical acclaim in 2010. Recent projects include creating The Katrina Experience: an Oral History Project and contributing to Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath (McSweeney’s).
Le Melle will present two lectures on Thursday, April 26 at 10:15 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the San Jacinto College South Campus in the Proscenium Theatre inside the Marie Spence Flickinger Fine Arts Center. The South Campus is located at 13735 Beamer Road in Houston.
Join us in welcoming back to Houston Stacy Parker Le Melle!
Cool Brains! Inprint Readings for Young People invites you to an afternoon of mystery and fun with Trenton Lee Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of The Mysterious Benedict Societyseries. He comes to Houston to read from his newest book in the series,The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, which, according to a starred Booklist review, “gives readers a reason to fall in love with the series all over again…[with] adventures, danger, cleverness, dry wit, and good-hearted characters at the center of the action. . . . Two hundred years after Dickens’ birth, this orphan story plays notes in a familiar key but creates its own memorable tune.”
