By Chris Bavender
It’s been a busy eight months for Weston Clark since his appointment last September as one of five teen National Student Poets. After presenting their poetry during a private reading at the White House hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama, the teens headed off to begin their stints as poetry ambassadors.
For Clark, 16, that meant prepping for a stint as a workshop teacher at the Pelham school district in New Hampshire where he taught four workshops. The Zionsville resident said the middle school students broke out of their shells to express themselves and the high school students created inspirational and heartbreaking pieces they presented at a poetry reading.
“That is what I love about teaching workshops,” Clark said. “You give students a medium through which to express themselves and what follows never ceases to amaze.”
He also had a chance to speak to a panel of educators at the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival to help them improve their poetry teaching skills.
“Many of today’s great youth poets (and history’s great poets as well) have been nudged toward the craft by a beloved teacher. I, myself, can remember each and every teacher who helped me on my way, and encouraged me to write,” he said.
Now his attention has turned to putting the finishing touches on his community service project, which focuses on cultural preservation.
“I am trying to teach kids to be proud of their roots, while at the same time fostering an understanding of one another that goes beyond stereotypes and other assumptions,” he said. “My goal is to show people that they aren’t as different from one another as they might think.”
So far Clark said his time as a National Student Poet has helped shape him even further as a poet and a person.
“Beginning my year of service in the National Student Poets Program was a lot like burying a seed in the soil and waiting for it to grow. Since then the seed has been sufficiently watered by the friends, poets, teaching experiences, and poetry festivals I have been exposed to along the way as a result of the program,” he said. “Now, my plant has begun blooming – my experiences bringing about new and better poetry and interesting ways to teach it.”
