All posts in Ola Faleti

The People, Places & Things We Come From

Greetings! Last week was our sixth session with Waters 6th graders. We explored the nouns and experiences that make us who we are by writing classic “I Am From” poems. This format is inspired […]

Large & Small Joys

Hello, poetry lovers! After a bit of a holiday break/poetry hiatus, Waters 6th graders were ready to jump back in. For this session, we read Ross Gay’s “Sorrow Is Not My Name” and explored […]

How to Triumph, Like a Student

Greetings, friends and poetry lovers! This fourth session for Waters 6th grade was our last one before the holiday break. Since we explored metaphors last week, it only made sense to explore similes this […]

Metaphors, two ways

During our 3rd poetry session at Waters Elementary, we tackled one of the most omnipresent forces in poetry – the metaphor! First, we listened to “Firework” by Katy Perry to find the metaphor there. […]

Who are our people and how do we find them?

Hello hello! For our second week at Waters Elementary, we discussed stanzas and we discussed what it means to belong. Our poem for the day was José Olivarez’s “I Walk Into Every Room and […]

Exploring Our Writing Impulses at Waters

Greetings, supporters and poetry lovers! This past Wednesday I was thrilled to kick off a yearlong residency with the 6th grade classes at Waters Elementary. After learning more about students’ likes and loves, their […]

Ending with Blackout Poems

Our short and sweet FORA residency came to a close last week. In our last session we explored blackout poems, which are always popular regardless of age. After viewing some cool examples, we turned […]

Writing From Joy

For our 4th FORA session, we talked about writing from a place of joy. To me, there’s no better example than the wonderful Ross Gay. We read “Sorrow Is Not My Name” together, digging […]

Celebration and Slam!

Alas, two weeks ago we closed out a stellar term of poetry with Bronzeville Classical’s 3rd and 4th grade students! On our final day, we didn’t write poems; instead we watched slam performances from […]

The Ars Poetica

Greetings, Bronzeville Classical Friends! In our nine weeks together, Bronzeville Classical students have written so many different kinds of poems broaching all different kids of topics. I don’t really believe in poetry “experts” (the […]

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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET