With our Poetry Club program, our tutors introduce students to straightforward and evocative English language poetry by the likes of William Carlos Williams and Carl Sandburg. And we invite students to un-pack the ideas and feelings communicated within them, to see how these simple, short packages of text can allude to deep wells of emotion and thought. The discussions that follow help provide a space for our students to talk about their fears and hopes and opinions using their budding English language skills

We also introduce the children to more playful poetry to introduce them to how using the English language (and language in general) can be fun. Poems about a kitten playing with a ball of yarn in which the language jumps and spins and romps much like its subject shows our students how the skillful use of English (and, indeed, all language) can help provide joy and laughter.

Our students then endeavor to immitate these two sorts of poems on their own. Some choose to convey their deeply held convictions and emotions through allusions to their own struggles and moments of fear or doubt. Others simply play with the English language, describing a fantastical animal they'd like to have as a pet or what it's like to play with a younger sibling.

These poems are then read aloud to the group by their authors and discussed by the group much like the examples brought in by the tutors. Eventually, the poems can then be laid out and printed out as a published collection, once again providing the students with an opportunity to realize how capable they can be with the English language.