In true poetic fashion, Ian Barker calls it “the dusty room, leather elbow patch syndrome.”
It's the typical reaction of most people when the subject of poetry is mentioned.
“There's this feeling that poetry is all about some old professor-type ready to deliver another boring lecture,” said Barker, whose work as a poet in Omaha and his native England has won him some renown. “But what so many people fail to recognize is the universal aspect of poetry, its ability to work in us.”
Thursday at Ralston High School, 140 students and teachers from seven high schools across the metro area saw that work firsthand as they took part in the Omaha Metropolitan Area High School Poetry Festival.
Barker was one of four Omaha poets who shared readings with the students and led them in workshops aimed at helping the kids better appreciate the poetic craft. Students also wrote and shared their own work in a reading that closed out the festival.
Dan Boster, a Ralston High English teacher and the festival's organizer, said the event is designed to help students who already have some interest in creative writing further tap into the poetic vein and become more comfortable reading poetry and finding their own poetic voice.
“The goal of the day is that they come to see poetry as a living thing, not just something they have to read out of a big anthology in class,” Boster said.
For seven years now, Boster has put the festival together with help from poets like Barker, Matt Mason, Jen Lambert and Liz Kay, all of whom read and worked with students in small groups Thursday.
Breakout sessions had students pondering what exactly passes for poetic material, how poets think and what goes into the practice of poetry.
Listening to the hum of poets and students throwing around ideas and sharing lines, Boster said he knew there was a different kind of education taking place.
“Even though I'm an English teacher, I know that learning about it in a classroom is entirely different from learning like this,” he said. “It's the best way you can learn about something like poetry. To see it actually being practiced like this, talked about like this.”
And, as Boster had hoped, students gained a greater appreciation of the craft.
“Poetry's got a bad rap,” said Mike Huber, a student at Omaha Burke High School. “People don't really give it a chance. They can't see past the one thing they remember about poetry — maybe some mushy love poem.
“But something like this gives you a chance to see what it really is and how it works.”
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