DC SCORES continues its poetry work at Powell Elementary. In a recent post on the DC SCORES blog, Perspectives from Powell, Part II: Pumpkins and personifications, writing coordinator Mira Smith talks about visiting poet Gowri Koneswaran, from the American Poetry Museum, who led a poetry workshop for the Powell students, teaching personification and word play to express feelings and ideas through inanimate objects.

One of the students, Daysha, came up with this poem that I think is awesome:

The pumpkins are sleeping.
They are sleeping because they don’t move
The leaves dancing when they fall off trees
and the wind blows them on the sidewalk
The acorn dies because the squirrel eats it
The rake dreams of eating the leaves instead of helping them get together
-- Written by Daysha

This is another example of the ways DC SCORES works with middle school students to teach them personal empowerment through physical and intellectual play.

This fall, Writing Coordinator Mira Smith is coaching writing at Powell Elementary School in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, DC. The Powell Panthers love soccer, but are also learning how to express their feelings about the beautiful game -- and much more -- through the poetry aspect of DC SCORES.

Their poetry slam is coming up on December 2nd -- I'll be there, hope you will come too!

Source: DC SCORES blog

Related from Petworth News:
- Uniting with DC SCORES on childhood development and being awesome (Oct 14, 2015)

To find out more about DC SCORES, check out their website, where you can sign up to volunteer at a neighborhood school, donate to the program, host a small fundraiser for the organization and more!