I'm late.. the inevitable dash to the end of school. But I need a moment to honor the essence of some poems written by my middle school students at Elmhurst Community Prep. This was a short project Opera Piccola provided at the last possible moment before summer break.
When invited to express "emotion recollected in tranquility," Wordsworth's definition of poetry, almost 100% of the sixth grade participants expressed passionate grief at death 'for no reason.' They were also asked to quote lines that were meaningful to them, from a book or newspaper, as part of the poem. If I hadn't known what country the piece below came from, I might think it was written by a child living in Iraq or Afghanistan. But then the quote from Martin Luther King Jr reminded me that wars have happened here too. In Eva's words:
"My heart cries when a family member is killed,when
I see bullet shots flying around
I have a dream; I have a dream that there’ll soon be peace
I have a dream; I have a dream there will not be a funeral close by
I have a dream; I have a dream that nightmare will be over!
I can’t forget those bullet shot sounds Boom Boom"
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