The Dear Poet Project is an educational project where students from 5th to 12th grade write letters to poet laureates in hopes of them responding to their poems. For Barstow, only juniors can submit letters to the project. This year, a few seniors received replies to their letters from the last academic year.
“I think it is a cool way to connect with real-life writers, get recognized, and take them out of the classroom. The poets always love the Barstow students,” Mrs. Marina Ganter, the junior and senior English teacher, said.
This event is held every year during April, National Poetry Month. Students can write to any poet on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors or someone who has received an Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellowship.
Barstow students have only recently started submitting letters to the Dear Poet Project. Mrs. Ganter introduced this project to students when she started teaching at Barstow in 2019. There were only 5 winners from that year: Siqi “Angela” Deng, Aasim Hawa, Geqi “Allie” Li, Allison McPherson, and Jia Tucker.
Every year, juniors pick a poem to analyze and then present it to the class. Then, they write a letter to a poet, though sometimes not from the same poet they presented on. Afterward, there is a peer editing session. Finally, the letter is sent to the poet.
“This project helps juniors learn great critical skills as well. Poems are so condensed, students really have to focus on every line,” Mrs. Ganter said.
The Barstow students who were selected for the 2022 Dear Poet Project are Brett Gieres, Solomon Holmes, Genevieve Hyatt, Andrew Lang, Anita Mohan, and Tien “Kimberly” Nguyen. Most of them wrote to different poets except Mohan and Hyatt.
Here are the letters they wrote and their poets’ responses:
Anita and Genevieve’s letters to Marilyn Chin
Brett’s letter to Kari Gunter-Seymour
Solomon’s letter to M L Smoker
Tien’s letter to Melissa Kwasny
Andrew’s letter to Brian Sonia-Wallace
Each letter reflects a personal connection to the poem, and all of them are touching in their own way. The poets’ responses are also very kind and encouraging to the students.
“I did not know how to relate to the poem yet because my story was when I was 6 and the author during the poem was in her 20s. Although she was much older, we basically went through the same experience,” explains Nguyen. “I did not see the generation gap because we went through the same process to be able to think consciously, just at different points in our lives.”
Mohan also wrote her letter based on an experience that resonated with her.
“We stumbled upon her when we had to do the presentation. Her poem was centered around identity and it reclaiming it. I related to the fact that my name got white-washed and now I take pride in my name,” Anita Mohan (‘23) said.
Each year the poets are different so juniors will have a new set of poets to choose from. This year’s junior class can appreciate the poems and hopefully receive some responses to their letters.
