For the past few years Homewood has been fortunate enough to receive a grant from the Howard County Arts Council, which recognizes the importance of creative arts in enriching education. Regie Cabico, a nationally famous slam poet, hosts our workshops.  One of the most unique things about these classes is that staff and teachers actually become students themselves!

In our poetry workshops, some adults opt to be called by their first name without a Mrs. or Mr. Although Regie leads the workshops, he doesn’t teach people “how” to write poetry. The class is structured with a warm-up exercise to get us in a creative mood and then we read a famous poem. After that, everyone writes for about 10 minutes and those who want to share their poems can do so.  Usually we start off listening to/reading a poem and then thinking about things that stand out to us. At times unique questions are asked to try to help get people in touch with their thoughts and feelings such as “what object describes you?” After mulling over the comments from others we are given a prompt from a topic or phrase used in the poem to write about. The prompt is open for unique interpretation for each individual and there is no right or wrong way to write. The staff: adults, teachers, etc write their own poems, too. At the end of the workshops those who feel comfortable read what they have written to everyone else. There is no judgment, grading, critiquing, or criticism of anyone’s poem. 

In addition to the stimulation of people’s imaginations, poetry also provides a way to get to know others on a deeper level. Often the things people write, even when they involve fictional elements, contain parts of themselves. Sometimes it’s hard to say things directly, or even find the right words but using imagery at times can make it easier for some people to give a “voice” to their emotions. One can even think of poetry as a form of silent music. Unfortunately due to funding the poetry workshops are not able to run the entire school year, instead they are usually hosted for a few months. On the last day of the class there is usually a reading where staff and students pick two or three poems to share. Sometimes other people from school, who did not participate, come to the reading. This year in addition to the reading, Mrs. Reis is trying to put together all of the participants’ poems to make a book!