On the chilly morning of October 12, several Verona High School students piled onto a bus and traveled to the 14th biennial Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival, held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Although most people would automatically assume poetry may not be exhilarating or exciting, they have obviously not been to the Dodge Poetry Festival. Huge concert halls filled to the brim with anxious students waiting to hear something that could potentially change their life is something that can be very sensational. The enthusiasm expressed by the students was tangible. Within NJPAC’s concert halls, students waited in hushed awe to hear famous and highly-praised poets read their works.
Upon arrival, Verona students were given a pamphlet outlining the schedule for the day. There were multiple sessions occurring simultaneously- at one end of NJPAC was the Festival Poet Readings from Rachel McKibbens and Juan Felipe Herrera while another session exhibited the works Brian Barker and Sharon Dolin. The magnitude of the event was impossible to describe. Not only did the festivities fill every nook and cranny of the entire venue but the actual festival spanned from Thursday October 11th to Sunday October 14th.
To put the event’s popularity into perspective, Verona High School students were unable to enter two separate sessions during the day because these sessions, one held in a large concert hall within NJPAC and the other in a church, had been completely filled. The events were strictly on a “first come, first served” basis.
One of the highlights of the day was Eavan Boland’s rendition of “The Emigrant Irish”- a poem the students from Mrs. Young’s AP Literature had recently analyzed in class.
“I wasn’t even expecting to hear that particular poem- I was just excited to hear her speak,” says Annie Patti, a senior in one of the AP Literature classes, who was present at the festival. “When she got up there and said she was going to read “The Emigrant Irish,” to be honest I was kind of excited,” she says sheepishly. “I was getting to experience what I had learned in school- when she recited it, I think me and a lot of other people were hanging onto her every word.”
For their last stop of the day, several Verona students visited a segment called “Conversation: Who Is It Can Tell Me Who I Am?: Poetry and Identity,” in which Isaac Jo, a senior, engaged the authors with an intelligent question which then became the highlight of the session. He pondered the prospect of a person’s identity and how even the smallest events in someone’s life can affect their writing. Verona students applauded his confidence and intelligence, thrilled that one of their own got to be a part of such a prolific event.
All in all, this event proved to be a major educational outlet for students to express their beliefs and thoughts in an encouraging environment.