Join us for our Tenth Annual Kids Poetry Reading on Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Our 2018-2019 season of Poetry Paths in the Schools is coming to a close, and we are hosting our 10th annual Kids Poetry Reading featuring student poets from Buchanan, Carter & MacRae, and Ross Elementary Schools. Please join the poets and their teachers, principals, friends, neighbors, and families as we celebrate their art! This event is free and open to the public.

Please join us on Tuesday, May 14, 6:30pm at the Roschel Performing Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College, 630 College Avenue, Lancaster, PA. 

Our student poets have found their inspiration in the Lancaster Barnstormers, the sport of baseball, and Le Hinton’s poem on exhibit at Clipper Stadium; a production of Treasure Island at the Fulton Theatre; and the wonders of the natural world on exhibit at the North Museum.

Music will be provided by the Music for Everyone String Ensemble, and there will be a reception following the reading. Please join us!

We thank the following companies who, by supporting F&M via contributions through the Commonwealth’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program, have supported Poetry Paths in the Schools since 2018: The Bryn Mawr Trust Company; Fulton Bank; Fundamental Labor Strategies, Inc; Oak Tree Development Group; Phillips Office Products; and Warfel Construction Company.

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Penn Square: Bricks and Mortar

“Bricks and Mortar,” a poem by Barbara Buckman Strasko, can be found engraved in a river of granite at the corner of King and Queen Streets in downtown Lancaster.

Lancaster dedicated the newly renovated Market Square, including the poem in granite, on Friday, September 30, 2016 at 12:00 pm.

This project was begun back in 2009, when the City’s Office of Public Works invited Poetry Paths to commission a poem that would be incorporated into the already existing design for the renovation of Penn Square.  John Hershey, then a member of the renovation design firm Thomas Comitta Associates, proposed that the poem be engraved in the granite “river” — now called “Confluence” — that would flow through the Square.  

In 2010, after a national call for poems, a selection committee of Lancaster residents, writers, and arts professionals chose the poem “Bricks and Mortar” by Lancaster poet and teacher Barbara Buckman Strasko.  Over two hundred residents of the city, by publicly commenting on the four poems named as finalists at displays throughout downtown Lancaster, had helped the committee make its choice.    

We thank everyone who brought this project to fruition, including our advisors and donors, the poet and site designers, the construction team, the City of Lancaster, and all of the people who have participated in and supported Poetry Paths over the years!

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Join us for our ninth annual Kids Poetry Reading on May 16, 2018

Each year Poetry Paths offers poetry workshops and enrichment activities for over one hundred schoolchildren from the School District of Lancaster. We invite you to celebrate this year’s young writers from Hand Middle School, Martin School, and King Elementary School!

Please join us on Wednesday, May 16, 6:30pm at the Roschel Performing Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College, 630 College Avenue, Lancaster, PA. 

Our student poets have found their own inspiration in the work of Pennsylvania College of Art & Design students, Church World Service, the Millport Conservancy, Poetry Paths sculptures and murals, Thaddeus Stevens and the Underground Railroad, and their own neighborhoods. Many of the students are immigrants to Lancaster, and they have also written beautifully about the homelands they left behind in their brave journeys to this place.

Music will be provided by the Music for Everyone String Ensemble, and there will be a reception following the reading.

We thank the following companies who, by supporting F&M via contributions through the Commonwealth’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program, have supported Poetry Paths in the Schools 2017-2018: The Bryn Mawr Trust Company; Fulton Bank; Fundamental Labor Strategies, Inc; Oak Tree Development Group; Phillips Office Products; and Warfel Construction Company.

 

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Poetry Paths at Water Street Mission

WaterStreetMissionWe’re thrilled to announce that the latest Poetry Paths artwork, a mural by Jared Bader, has just been installed at Water Street Ministries.  Here is the link to the article about the mural in LNP.

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Poetry Paths in the Schools Kids Poetry Journal

 

journal cover

Snow in the City
By Migma Sherpa, Fulton Elementary School, Grade 5

Every day I see many things
in the city: buildings, parks
and schools, cars and bikes.

I see some Nepali food and
fruit in the stores here, too.
It makes me happy to see that.

Today I see people outside playing
in the white snow. They are
throwing snowballs at each other.

Before, I never knew it could
be snowing here. We had no
snow in my country. It is as cold,
white, and pretty as I thought.

****

2014 marks the fifth year that we have worked with Barbara Buckman Strasko, our Poet in the Schools, to offer excellent poetry writing workshops annually to about 250 public elementary and middle school students. In preparation for the workshops, we also sponsor experiences for the students that give them a new and deeper appreciation of their neighborhoods and provide inspiration for their poems.

At the end of each program year, we publish a journal of the kids’ poetry and host a large public reading of their work for teachers, principals, students, families, neighbors and friends. The reading by our young poets from Washington, Fulton, and Ross Elementary Schools and Reynolds Middle School was held on Thursday, May 1 at the Roschel Performing Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College and each student received a copy of the journal.

Poetry Paths in the Schools is made possible by the generous support of the following foundations, institutions, and individuals:
Lancaster County Community Foundation
The Armstrong Foundation
Franklin & Marshall College
Gretel and Arthur B. Dodge, Jr.

and by the following companies who, in supporting Franklin & Marshall College via contributions through the Commonwealth’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program (www.fandm.edu/EITC), have supported Poetry Paths in the Schools 2013-2014:
Frontier Communications
John E. Fullerton, Inc.
Fulton Bank
Oak Tree Development Group, LLC
SofterWare, Inc.
TIPPETTS/WEAVER Architects, Inc.
Tomlinson Bomberger
Warfel Construction Company
Waste Management, Inc.

Thank you to all of our donors!

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Fulton Elementary School site complete

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Stop by Fulton Elementary School, 225 West Orange Street, to visit the newest completed site of Poetry Paths! The site was completed in November 2013 and features five stainless steel spheres with Corian caps on which poems are printed. Congratulations to writers … Continue reading

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Poetry Paths artists and poets win awards

2013

Poet Mary Szybist wins the National Book Award in Poetry for her collection of poems, Incarnadine. Mary’s poem, “All Times and All Tenses Alive In this Moment” appears in the book. You can find this poem here, and at the Poetry Paths site at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.

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Chris Dawson Architect receives a Citation award for the Excellence in Design Competition from the American Institute of Architecture for his project, “Eastern Market Bench.” You can find the bench at the Poetry Paths site at Eastern Market.

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Tim Seibles is named a National Book Award Finalist for his book of poetry, “Fast Animal.” You can find his poem, “Free” below or visit the Poetry Paths site at Fulton Elementary.

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Go Welsh receives a number of awards for their art installation at the Fulton Theatre.

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Poetry Paths Installation at Fulton Elementary School

Visit the grounds of the newly renovated Fulton Elementary School, 225 West Orange Street to see the latest Poetry Paths artwork, by artists Sara Pevaroff Schuh and Erin Gleason. Below, Terry and Marianne of Irvin Services, the fabricators of the piece, have been on site preparing the stainless steel spheres and adding the Corian caps on which the poems are printed. We are especially proud of this installment because it represents the thoughtful engagement of so many people in Lancaster, from the board of the Shreiner Concord Cemetery, who chose the poems and worked closely with the artists to develop the design, to the Board of the School District of Lancaster who welcomed the piece at Fulton. Congratulations to the artists and to writers Tim Seibles, Charles Bernstein, Alexandra Hill, and Toria Benitez. Alexandra and Toria were students in the school district when they wrote their poems, which celebrate the life and legacy of abolitionist and Lancastrian Thaddeus Stevens.

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Poetry Paths in the Schools is underway for the 2013-14 school year!

Students from Washington Elementary and Reynolds Middle School have been exploring  the outdoors as inspiration for poetry. Washington Elementary visited the Conestoga Greenway and Reynolds Middle School (pictured here) visited the Millport Conservancy. Ross and Fulton Elementary schools are also participating. Keep a look out for updates!

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New Poetry Paths piece at Keystone Arts & Culture Center

Artists George Mummert and Dave Romanchock installed the latest addition to the Poetry Paths On the Streets initiative of public art and poetry in Lancaster City on Thursday, June 27.                                                                                                                      Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/866781_New-sculpture-gets-finishing-touches.html#ixzz2XpECzgha

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