“The best audience for a poetry reading that I have ever experienced is the audience during the Dodge Poetry Festival’s High School Student Day. Busloads and busloads of students from surrounding towns, counties, and states came to Newark to listen to poets read and talk about poetry.”
–Oliver de la Paz
Since 1986, over 45,000 students and 10,000 teachers from as far away as Florida, Wisconsin, Maine and California have participated in High School Student Day, the largest poetry event for high school students in North America.
Pre-registered high school students and their pre-registered teachers are admitted at no charge to all High School Student Day events, described below:
·POETS ON POETRY: Festival Poets read and discuss some of the poems and poets that have mattered to them. Time is set aside for Q & A.
·CONVERSATIONS: Intimate groups of Festival Poets discuss the enduring themes evoked by poetry, including Going Public with Private Feelings, When Politics is Personal, and Saying the Unsayable.
·FESTIVAL POET READINGS feature a dynamic and diverse group of poets.
·POETS FOR TEACHERS (preferred seating for teachers): Festival Poets explore how to bring poetry to life inside and outside the classroom.
·STORYTELLING, poetry’s closest relative, is performed throughout the day.
·OPEN READING: Time and space is set aside for young writers to read their work to their peers.
·Pre-registered schools have the option of remaining for THE EVENING MAIN STAGE PROGRAM of readings and music at no charge.
High school teachers can CONTACT US at studentday@grdodge.org with questions, but more information will be available as the Festival approaches.
To read the rest of Oliver’s blog on his experience at the 2010 Festival, click here.
“I held a Poets on Poetry discussion with a group of fun-loving high school students at Peddie Baptist Church. I read a few poems, but mostly I talked about what it was like to be a writer and what it was like to do what I do. I treated the talk as if I were talking to my younger self.”
–Oliver de la Paz
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The best way to get up to the minute announcements as the Festival approaches is to join our mailing list. If you are a teacher, make sure to join the Teacher Mailing List to receive updates related to the 2012 High School Student Day.
For more information about the Dodge Poetry Festival and programs, visit www.dodgepoetry.org
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[…] more about exactly what this day is like in poet Oliver de la Paz’s blog and a bit more in this blog post. As always, there will be a variety of simultaneous events, including readings, Poets on Poetry […]