by Dennis Dalman
news@thenewsleaders.com
At first they were a bit shy and hesitant, but within a few short minutes the fourth-graders were using their bodies, facial expressions and voices to make their own poems come alive in spoken-word performances.
Their “pied-piper” who coaxed the children out of their shy cocoons was Frank Sentwali, a spoken-word performer, teacher, tutor and mentor from St. Paul. Sentwali spent a busy week with all of the grades, pre-K through 6, at St. Francis Xavier Elementary School in Sartell – a total of 182 students.
Sentwali was at the school all last week as an artist-in-residence through the St. Paul COMPAS program, which provides a wide range of artists to bring cultural enrichment to schools throughout the state.
Last Friday, Sentwali met with 10 of the students in teacher Mary Winter’s fourth-grade class.
During the week, they had spent a lot of time writing their own poems, based on tips from Sentwali. The Friday session began with an improvisatory group poem, just to get the kids to loosen up a bit. One student would think up a descriptive line on the spur of the moment, then each student down the line would add a new line. The lines that tumbled from their imaginations included images of blue monkeys, a ferocious tiger and yummy birds.
Sentwali also motivated the students through brief calisthenics, including exercises to warm up their face and lip muscles by pronouncing loud-and-clear, over and over, such phrases as “toy boat” and “unique New York.” The purpose of all of it was to bring about effective spoken-word performances – poems for which students use body language, movement and facial expression to make their poems come alive for listeners.
After the warm-ups, students were divided into groups to practice and to gently offer suggestions to improve their performances.
Finally, the desks in the classroom were arranged in a semi-circle, and then the children, one by one, began to treat their fellow students to their poems. As they read their poems, some children swayed their arms, stamped their feet, pretended they were floating like a cloud, fell to the ground, raised their eyes and arms skyward. They used physical expressions of the emotions within the written and spoken words.
Students listened with undivided attention and burst into applause before and after each student gave a performance.
Those who performed are Shane Corbett, Max Ehlen, Mikayla Eisenschenk, Madison Franzmeier, Hope Grasswick, Jim Haas, Liz Hamak, Emily Hanson, Jacob Stoltzenberg and Anna Yarmon. A few of the fourth-graders in the class could not attend the poetry session because of other commitments.
The following are two of the poems written and read by the poet-students:
The Flag
by Shane Corbett
It’s a symbol of freedom.
Red everywhere, pain and yelling, “Run!”
Loud explosions, killing it’s no fair,
But a red, white and blue flag is waving in the air.
The worst thing ever, it’s called war.
Hard crying when the parents hear the news.
Everybody knows there’s more than a bruise.
I think they take it way too far.
It’s violent, it’s horrible, it’s ugly, it’s sad.
It’s bad, it’s as vicious as a mad bear.
People are hungry, they’re tired, they’re dying, they’re mad,
But a red, white and blue flag is in the air.
But a red, white and blue flag is in the air.
The Storm
by Mikayla Eisenschenk
When the thunder comes
I shiver with fear.
I can’t wait
‘Til my mother gets here.
Rain sounding like drip, drip, drop.
Oh, I wish the thunder could STOP.
I hate how it is so dark.
I can see that my parents are starting to park.
The wind is going whish, whoosh.
I hear the door, it is starting to push.
After the storm starts to pause,
The sun comes out; it is nature’s cause.