April’s poetic appeal

April is National Poetry Month and middle school students recently spent the day painting poems on windows in downtown Zebulon. Students from seventh grade English/language arts classes displayed poems all around the courthouse square April 2.’Because April is Poetry Month, we wanted to share some poetry with everyone in Pike County,’ said Chris Curry of A Novel Experience in Zebulon. ‘Kim Johnson did a fabulous job of organizing the kids and the poems. She decided to use works from Georgia poets and also poetry from the A Novel Poet’s Society here.’A Novel Poet’s Society meets the first Friday of each month at 7 p.m. at A Novel Experience and is open to the community to share their poetry or just enjoy the poetry of others. Georgia Night by Daniel W. Hicky reads, ‘The sun’s red wick is blown out like a lamp,’ on the front window of the Pike County Journal Reporter’s corner office. Middle school teacher Kim Johnson said the seventh grade standards emphasize forms of figurative language such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, onomatopoeia and alliteration, which were parts of most of the poems.’Students recently completed critical analysis of the themes, symbols, characters and figurative language in ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes and have begun to critically analyze poetry and other texts independently,’ she said. ‘This is one of the highlights of the school year for me. I have an endless fascination with Georgia writers ‘“ especially the poets. I’m grateful Chris Curry invites us to help promote literacy in Pike by using poetry as both a literary and an art form, and I’m grateful to the businesses on the square for their words of encouragement to the students each time we visit.’Â Students who took part include Morgan Rawlins, Hannah Coley, Dylan Blohm, Abigail Richards, Caylee Daniel, Lydia Adams, Abby Cox, Abigail Chasteen, Talisa Watts, Peyton Lee and John Ever. Teachers Kim Johnson, Brenda Richards, Christian Callahan, Charla Floyd, Marci Daniel and Andrea Fowler were also involved. Several parent chaperones supervised the students.