(above) Participants at the “Poetry by Heart” program on Saturday, April 27: Back Row: Luz Fernandez, Lily McMullan, Leah Scott, Cheyenne Cora, Celeste DelGuercio, Aashritha Jinaga, Luigi Lancellotti; Front Row: Aayush Jinaga, Franklin Lucas Kutner, and Frankie Lancellotti. (Missing from picture: Karly Ohngemach)
Cranford Public Library 2nd Annual “Poetry by Heart” Program
To celebrate National Poetry Month, The Friends of the Cranford Public Library held its second annual “Poetry by Heart” program on Saturday, April 27, 2019.
The event took place in the Cranford Public Library’s Raddin Room and was attended by 11 children. To the applause of friends and relatives, nine children recited poems from memory by the authors Robert Louis Stevenson, Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky and two children recited poems which they had written.
The program included a word game in which the children listened to limericks with missing words and tried to find rhyming words to replace them. Then there was a raffle in which everyone won a game or a poetry book.
Afterward, the children were divided into pairs for “Back and Forth” which is a way to read poetry aloud. For this activity, each pair received a different poem and the partners took turns reading individual lines until the poem was finished. This provoked much laughter and was enjoyed by both the children and the audience. After the last poem was read, the participants were rewarded for their efforts with pizza and lemonade.
The Friends of the Cranford Public Library believe that programs like “Poetry by Heart” can help to instill in children a lifelong love of poetry. They look forward to sponsoring the program for many years to come.
