NEWS
Guest Poet Shares Insight with MED Third Graders
Third graders enjoyed learning poetry writing techniques from a true professional when New York City poet, artist and educator Richard Lewis visited the Mary E. Dardess Elementary School in Chatham.
With the third grade presently studying China, Mr. Lewis demonstrated Chinese poetry styles and modeled how Chinese poets use their senses to perceive nature and inspire verse. He led the students through exercises that focused on the roles that imagination and visualization play when creating this kind of poetry. Later, the students had a chance to find a quiet place in the classroom to sit and write down their thoughts using some of the Chinese techniques.
Lewis has been a visiting guest artist at MED over the past three years, as part of Chatham’s educational partnership with the Spencertown Academy. The program, called artsVOYAGE!, fuses academics with interdisciplinary themes and artistic expression to enhance classroom curriculum.
An acclaimed poet, Lewis has published several volumes of poetry and written a number of books highlighting the poetic traditions of different world cultures. He is also an experienced educator and has directed the Touchstone Center for Children, an arts education center in Manhattan, for over four decades. His most recent visit to MED was on March 14.