This past week, all of the students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Corpus Christi School memorized a poem to present to their class. This was done in preparation for the annual Poetry Contest, held this past week, which left many of us wondering if it is better to be in a muddle by sitting in a puddle of mud or to be one inch tall and ride a worm to school.

After all of the students performed their poems to their homerooms, finalists were chosen by either the students or a committee of teachers. The finalists were chosen based on poem choice, diction, memorization skills and props or costumes. These students then competed in the Poetry Contest on April 2nd in front of their peers, parents, teachers and friends. Often times, this is a student's first opportunity to stand on stage, speak into a microphone, and talk before a large crowd.

Each grade level had different requirements for the number of lines that their poems had to be. Many of the kindergarten students, the youngest group of poets, choose nursery rhymes or other short poems to recite. As the students advanced in grade, the complexity of each poem presented was increased so that by fifth grade each student had to choose a poem of at least 20 lines.

"The children were judged on memorization, creativity which included costumes and props, presentation, articulation or expression and the difficulty of the poem," explained Mrs. Schafer, our First Grade teacher and the Poetry Contest sponsor.

Many times poems are written by the students or chosen from among popular writers such as Shel Silverstein or Bruce Lansky. One second grader changed the name in his poem to his teacher's name, Miss Mitros, to the amusement of both students and faculty and included the line "Miss Mitros was not paying attention, so Mr Chiplock sent her to detention."

Mrs. Schafer commented, "All of the students worked very hard and did a wonderful job. It was very difficult for the judges to pick the winners."

Each homeroom had first place, second place, third place and honorable mention awards. We want to congratulate all the poets, their teachers and parents for helping the students to perform in a wonderful demonstration of the students' memorization and presentation skills.


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