By Ciara Hooks
The Central Activities Network collaborated with the New Britain Parks and Recreation program to put on the program’s first poetry expo in Semesters on Thursday night. The expo showcased poetry written by the students and the staff.
“We all collaborated and for the past couple of months we put together poetry that has to do with academic enrichment, drop out prevention and teen pregnancy prevention,” said Ashley Santana, President of CAN and supervisor of the parks and recreation program at Slade Middle School in New Britain.
Joining Slade Middle School in the event were New Britain schools Diloreto Magnet School, Roosevelt Middle School and Pulaski Middle School.
Some students worked individually while others worked in groups of two on a selection of poems, artwork and videos about the three components of the program, how they felt about the program and why their school was great. The finished projects were displayed at the show.
The students shared different aspects about themselves and the dangers of dropping out of school and not receiving a good education. The host of the event was Jerrell Hargraves, a councilor in the program.
“We taught them different types of poetry and they tried to focus on the three components of our program,” said Hargraves. “They all had fun, they all enjoyed it.”
Elizabeth Lebby, another councilor involved in the show, started a step team of 10 girls called Turn Up L.O.U.D. about two weeks ago and they performed a drill routine at the event. It added another element of creative expression storytelling while still making these young girls stronger people.
“These were the most shy girls I had,” said Lebby. “I wanted to give them some type of confidence and leadership skills so I decided to have them perform today in front of people. It helped their confidence and self-esteem.”
Each group of staff from the participating schools performed at the end of the show. The Roosevelt Middle School staff decided to do a parody poem on the behavior of the students they oversee. In reality, they aren’t the best behaved and don’t listen, so they described them as angels and at the end they played “Lose My Mind” by rapper DMX and as Lebby said, “jammed out.”
Family, friends and elementary school students attended the new event helping to make it a success. This was the first one put on by the CAN and the New Britain Parks and Recreation duo, but they vowed that it definitely wouldn’t be their last. They plan on continuing to influence and enhance the lives of young people through the self expression of poetry by making the poetry expo an annual event.
“It was a great turnout,” said Santana. “We had parents involved, we had all different types of students involved, we couldn’t have asked for a better turnout.”
