Poets in Central Park
By Andrew Seguin
 A halcyon day, a doozy, a beaut — how else to describe that first Monday in May, when Class 1 ventured to the Conservatory Gardens in Central Park to compose poetry? Every tulip was in bloom, and the lilacs were catching up; tree blossoms blotted out branches, and birds bathed in the newly flowing water of the fountains. Chapin’s young poets couldn’t have found a better spot in which to observe, reflect and write.
Aided by their teachers and several parents who acted as guides and sounding boards, the girls set out in groups through the gardens with pencils and an activity sheet. The sheet acted as a poetic template of sorts, helping the girls to gather information for the poems they would later write. There were spaces for them to draw what they saw — big things, very small things, man-made things and living things — as well as instructions to write how an aspect of one of those things might smell or feel, and how it might be described in a surprising way.
“What do you see?” one parent asked her group. “A big tree,” “A big bush,” “A garbage can,” were the responses. “What’s a very small thing?” the parent asked. “Flower petals,” one student responded. Straightforward exchanges like these then led to more precise and increasingly complex observations, which the students shared with each other when the groups rejoined their classes around the Untermeyer fountain.
“Who saw something poetic?” teacher Wendy Lebovic asked her class. “I saw a big tree with white flowers; I thought the flowers were clouds with pink and white polka dots,” one student responded. “I saw bluebells that looked like bubbles,” another said, subtly illustrating a significant feature of poetry — a surprising analogy made stronger by corresponding sounds.
Mrs. Lebovic then read some poems about pigeons in the city, asking the girls to focus on words that described sounds, such as “screech” and “squeak.” The reading was a prelude to the girls’ writing time, which began after some further reminders. “You need to think about your line breaks,” Mrs. Lebovic said to the girls. “You need to think about repetition, and how repetition can help us to focus on a feeling,” she added. “And remember, it’s your choice of what to write about.” With that, the poets were off to the Harlem Meer to make verse out of what they’d observed.
Here is one of the poems:
Tulips
pinkish
curvyish
all different colors
rainbowing at me
smiling at me
with cool petals
bursting at me
tulips are beautiful!!
Click here for a photo gallery of images from the trip
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