Peer Poetry - Nikola Kalapasev

 One of my personal favorite classes was when everyone was assigned to bring a poem to class and talk about. I don't remember specific poetic examples from my classmates, but the premise of this is something to think about. I enjoy poetry, but I am by no means an expert, nor do I read much of it on my own time. But something about the rhythmic delineation of the stanzas coupled with usually emotion filled words resonates with me and a lot of people. I think the assignment of getting students to find poems is one thing of beauty itself, because it encourages the students to find a piece of poetry that specifically speaks to them. In this hunt students may discover poets that they'd never find before, or relate to poems that don't relate to anyone else, and find their own beauty within someone else's writing. I also really enjoyed when people were presenting their poems, because I could tell everyone who presented picked a poem that spoke to them. I could hear it in the tone of their voice, reciprocating the emotion and power that the author wanted to convey, ensuring the speaker having a power of their own. Articulating the emotional grounds to which they picked the poem, through tone and meter. I think poetry is one of the greatest forms of art, and I really enjoyed our discussion on them in class.