As they worked hard throughout the third marking period, teacher Jennifer McQuillan’s Honors American Literature class celebrated their accomplishments by having an annual Poetry Day. Poetry Day is a celebration of numerous poets and the language of their poetry. Not only that but McQuillan also believes Poetry Day teaches great lessons to students because “Memorization is a lost art, and we don’t spend time memorizing information anymore. As a result, it is becoming harder to retain information and we are having a harder time with memorization because we are not used to using our brain in that way anymore” Poetry Day lets students recite and develop recitation skills no matter how shy, or outgoing they are.

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Roopa Gorur, Sophomore says that “My favorite part about Poet Day was hearing everybody’s poems and the interesting poets that they talked about. Poet Day was interesting because it exposes you to different aspects and movements of American Literature of the 20th century.”

Devyn Barnette, Sophomore says that “My favorite part was getting to hear other peoples opinions on the pieces that we have been studying for a while, and to hear their interpretations of the poems themselves.” Her advice for Honors American Literature next year is to “Pick a poet that you enjoy reading about not only just for your essay but in general because you will do a lot with them”

Elie Huez, Sophomore, says his favorite part about poetry day is “Listening to everyone’s poems and understanding what they feel like.”  He also “learned that there is many feelings portrayed into poems that… poets put in”, and “The poem [he] recited was John Nash Greene’s and it’s called my philosophy of life.”

Each student is assigned a poet and they choose what poem they want to recite. Huez “chose that poem because it was the shortest one [Greene] wrote.”
Poetry Day was a wonderful learning experience that Honors American Literature students are likely to never forget. Thanks to McQuillan for offering her students the opportunity to enrich themselves with the beautiful poetry!