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[julie]

>not sure which county this school resides, maybe York, Pa maybe further North...I'll try to find out.
Read Yolanda's poem at the end. Really. read it.

*****
Something magical must be in the air at this small, city elementary school housed in
an old-fashioned building tucked away, under the trees, on West Orange Street.

In the past five years, Fulton Elementary School has produced 10 nationally
recognized poets, all under the age of 12.

Meet Yalonda Lockett, age 9.

Her lovely, poignant poem, titled, "It's a Letter," deals with loneliness, sharks
and the saving grace of a book found under the bed covers.
?
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass loved the fourth-grader's poem. In fact, he
chose it out of thousands of other kids' poems, awarding it a grand prize in this
year's River of Words poetry contest.

One of Yalonda's schoolmates, Alijah Rosario, also 9 and a third-grader, was chosen
a finalist in the national contest, for her poem about the way the air feels on your
skin.

And the two students' teacher, Barbara Strasko, was chosen Teacher of the Year by
the contest, billed as the world's largest youth poetry contest and which is
affiliated with the Library of Congress' Center for the Book.

"I love these kids," says Strasko, a literacy coach at Fulton, who teaches students
about poetry and gives them both the inspiration and freedom to work on it.

?"You can write what you feel," says Alijah.

Says Yalonda, "She lets us write in our own words."

Strasko, the county's poet laureate, reads her students poetry, or short books, or
sometimes her own poetry. They talk about it, make lists of words and write their
own poems. Sometimes they listen to music or look at pictures while they are
writing.

"When I first started doing it, I was quite amazed," Strasko says. "Often their
ideas are fresh and more original than older kids', or adults'."

For these kids, poetry is not the rhymed, singsongy verse that often is associated
with the genre.

It is more free-form, starting with an idea or feeling and growing from there, often
in unexpected ways.

For example, Yalonda's class was writing about water, when she asked if she could
write a letter.

"I said, 'Sure,'" Strasko says. "I figured if that's what she needs to do, then she
should do it."

Her poem is called "It's a Letter" and begins this way:

In the dark blue sea

I saw a letter, it was

very small and this

is what it said:

I miss you in the dark blue sea.

When she was writing, Yalonda says she thought about how she feels sometimes when
she misses her mom, when her mom is at work. In the poem, she also talks about books
she has read, and how she deals with her feelings when she is sad.

"I wanted to tell people how I feel sometimes," Yalonda says.

Alijah wrote her poem after Strasko read a book about water, and showed her class a
picture of a river.

She remembered a trip her own family took to the Susquehanna River.

"The wind was hitting me when we were in the water," she said. "It felt like a
flower was growing in my belly."

The girls hug each other when they talk about their poetry. It is very exciting to
them to have won national recognition, and they are looking forward to a trip next
month to Washington, where Strasko and the eight grand prize winners from across the
country will be honored at a ceremony and public reading.

But first the two girls will be among other Fulton poets who will read their work at
the school's Poetry and Arts Night, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday.

Strasko will be listening.

"I've written poems about my students," she says, "about their lives, honoring some
of their stories. I think I have learned from them. They teach me to stay more
original and fresh."







It's a Letter

In the dark blue sea
I saw a letter, it was

very small and this
is what it said:

I miss you in the dark blue sea.

I love to read but I need help
with some of the words.

I need help, but I usually
read alone. I read one book

about Marvin becoming a king,
another book was about a shark.

Every time he sees legs or an arm
he goes into a wave and nothing

is there. Sometimes when I am
sad, I say I hate my life,

I run away, hide under the covers
And nothing is there but my book.

Yalonda Lockett