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hvparent.com n Hudson Valley Parent 33 the task and objective at hand. For example, Gold approaches teach- ing quatrain poems to a group of middle school aged girls by saying "Write anything in four lines. But I challenge you to rhyme lines 1 and 3 and 2 and 4." It wasn't until after the challenge was complete that Gold even uttered the word quatrain. For Jessica Casamento, a New Paltz mom who homeschools her 9-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, poetry is a constant within her self-created curriculum. By exposing her children to poetry on a frequent basis, she believes they are less inclined to shy away from reading or writing within the genre. "I don't want my children to be intimidated by poetry," says Casamento. She teaches her children poet- ry from more of a holistic type of viewpoint and assures her son and daughter that they don't have to understand every line. Casamento's children also take part in "Poetry Tea Time Tuesdays," where each child recites an original poem they wrote for an audience consisting of their grandparents, which, similar to the challenge described above, gives purpose to the tweens' time and efforts spent writing their poems. Encourage teens to find their voice "High school students often shy away from poetry," says Milby, "due to distraction and the initial presen- tation of literature. However, when adults are excited and happy about self-expression young people will desire to be a part of it." If subject matter is presented as boring and dull, why would teenagers want to become more deeply involved with it? According to Wallkill mom and high school teacher Katie Bowman, "A lot of kids automatically hate poetry because they assume all there is to it is dissecting it line by line." Bowman refers to this sort of poetry analysis as "beating and torturing a poem to get it to confess its meaning. It isn't on trial, and it sucks the beauty from it." Talk about poetic! Poet Gold works to empower teens to find their voice through poetry by using it as an anti-violence tool. She facilitates a program where middle and high school students use poetry to speak out against violence. In this way, similar to Audrey Poteet, these teens learn that they have a voice, as well as something worthwhile to say. Truly, it does not get much more beneficial than that. Bowman says, "English without poetry is like continuous cloudy days with no sun; you can certainly get through it, but you're missing the light." Jill Valentino is a wife, mom, elementary educator and lifelong resident of the Hudson Valley. BORED KIDS? WE ALWAYS HAVE FUN STUFF TO DO READY FOR YOU AT HVPARENT.COM MAKE PLANS 24/7 PLANNING AN EVENT? ADD IT TO OUR CALENDAR FREE