PoetryWITS: A Poetry Program in Philadelphia and Surrounding Schools

MONTGOMERY, PA -- Poetry has been a "lifelong project" for Elizabeth Rivers, but she didn't start to get serious about her poetry until 2000 when she retired from 14 years of teaching elementary school. "I could spend more time on poetry

The downtime served Rivers' poetry well. She enrolled in a Bucks County Community College poetry course taught by Chris Bursk, a class frequented by local poet Joanne Leva and 2007 Montgomery Poet Laureate David Simpson. Rivers won the Dorfman Poetry Prize and the Portland Pen Poetry Contest and was published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal and The Christian Century.

In 2008, Rivers, 72, was named the tenth Montgomery County Poet Laureate. The program, established in 1998 by Leva, encourages its poet laureates to pursue a specific project for the year following their win. 2007 Montgomery Poet Laureate David Simpson produced a tenth anniversary CD for the program which features recorded readings by all ten Poet Laureates.

Rivers, more confident in her poetry after the Montgomery award, wanted to share and spread poetry in the community. She wished especially to reach the local children. "I didn't teach poetry writing," said Rivers, "I'm trying to make up for it now." To do this she created PoetryWITS.

Poetry WITS (Writers in the Schools), an extension of the Montgomery Poet Laureate Program, will host an annual poetry contest for four categories of grades: first through third, fourth through sixth, seventh through ninth, and tenth through twelfth.

Poetry WITS is still in its skeletal stages; the website is speckled with "Coming Soon" notices. "The webmaster [Eric Meddlin] keeps saying 'Any day now, any day now'," joked Rivers. Although the website isn't up to its full potential quite yet, it already features selected poems from Abington Friends School's, a college preparatory school in Jenkinstown, literary magazine.

Rivers envisions the program as a tool for teachers to introduce poetry to the classroom and to showcase poetry written by children. She hopes to work closely with local schools like Abington Friends School.

Soon the website will include lesson plans for teachers of all age groups. Rivers hopes children and teachers submit to the website for publication as well as to the contest. PoetryWITS is all about showcasing the kids.

Kids can also enter Sarah Mook Poetry Prize. The deadline for this contest is March 31, 2009. First prize will receive $100, second prize is $50, and third prize is $25.

The deadline for the PoetryWITS Montgomery County Youth Poetry Contest is February 2, 2009.

PoetryWITS' url is http://www.a2pwebdesign.com/poetrywits/.