Poetry Group Finishes Five-Week Session

The C.H. Booth Library 2007 Fall Young Adult Poetry Group finished up a five-week session of writing under the direction of Liz Arneth, Donna Renzulli, and teen mentor Tori Mead on Saturday, November 17. The group met once a week to write poetry, read their poetry to each other, and receive comments on the poetry.

“Field trips” were taken within the library, including two evenings spent in the Children’s Department Room where playtime making collages, Origami paper art, and designing Cootie Catchers were used as jumping off points to creative poetry writing. The four student poets — Emily Ashbolt, Julie Daving, Melissa Procaccini and Linda He — also spent a session in the library’s attic exploring library benefactress Mary Hawley’s reassembled bedroom there.

“Their task was to draw something that drew their attention, and then return to the third floor and write a poem about it,” said Ms Arneth. “The young poets chose such disparate objects as the top of an artificial Christmas tree, an old dusty chest, an arrangement of flowers, a painting of two people with a broom, a lantern, and other objects,” she said. A lively discussion about their feelings about the attic and its contents followed the drawing and writing session.

The five-night program was an atmosphere of compassion, humor, and creativity, said Ms Arneth.

“No challenge was too great and the poetry that emerged was dazzling and innovative.”

For information on other writing programs offered through the Young Adult Department of the C.H. Booth Library, contact young adult librarian Margaret Brown at 426-4533.