TO THE MARLBORO COMMUNITY: CURRENT and FORMER PARENTS / GRANDPARENTS, AUNTS, UNCLES, STUDENTS...AT MES:

A PETITION TO MAINTAIN THE MES POETRY PROGRAM, INCLUDING 4TH - 8TH GRADES DURING THEIR REGULAR SCHOOL DAY.

(Comments are welcome regarding the impact the Poetry Program has had on your child or you, especially during the older grades.)

For 35 years Ann Gengarelly has been offering the Poetry Program to students of Marlboro Elementary School. MES may suffer a blow in 2014-15 if a proposed administrative change in poetry programming goes through.

As proposed, 4th through 8th graders would no longer have Ann's poetry workshops as part of their MES curriculum (that's half the student body! ...and the older grades at that! Egads).

This is not a budgetary issue. Ann's contract has already been signed for the coming year. A downsize of this magnitude would radically change the shape and purpose of the Poetry Program.

Ann's poetry workshops at school are a time for students to slow down, self-orient, and focus their attention on what is knocking in their hearts.

In the younger grades Ann ignites the flame of reverence in the students by introducing them to the natural sacred voice of their own poems. As the children travel up through the grades Ann challenges these young writers to use language impeccably to express themselves in their poems.

By the time children have reached the upper grades at MES, they have become adept at quieting themselves and turning within to listen. They are skilled at crafting meaningful poems with rich and complex language. They offer compassion as they honor the different voices of their peers. They are comforted and strengthened to know their feelings are universal, their voice is original, their stories are valuable, their regard for one another, healing and unifying.

Do we want our children to think compassion and reverence are 'specials' we can't support? ...that we value their voices less as they grow older? Why would we want to lob off a living limb that is leafing out with a rare form of social/cultural inclusivity and individually-defined spirituality in action at MES?

Try as I may to instill the value of self knowledge, right thinking, and conscious speech in my own children's lives, as a parent I am immensely grateful that MES includes Ann's poetry workshops as a vital part of the curriculum. Reverence becomes a practice each child imprints and continues to undertake even/especially in the midst of the change, joy, and difficulties of growing up.

I support the preservation of Ann's MES Poetry Program as part of the regular school curriculum for all the grades. The authentic voices of students as they become older need to be expressed and heard; it would be a terrible loss if their voices were not offered a venue for their complex and changing worlds. And what a loss to the community to miss out on what our youth has to tell us. Poetry often can capture what is "denied in ordinary speech", something Ann refers to in many introductions to 'Paper Feelings', the school's yearly poetry magazine.

Please join me in signing this petition, and pass it along to others. Again, comments are welcome regarding the impact the Poetry Program has had on your child or you, especially during the older grades.

-Saint Rosner, mother of Frida, Merou, Chloe and Theodore.