A school library is full of knowledge and words to fill children’s creative imaginations. Sitting in Edgehill Elementary School’s library, however, was a children’s author who was there to help children imagine words of their own.
Author Margriet Ruurs, who has published 27 books, was at Edgehill recently, spending a few days in workshops with students, from kindergarten to grade seven, teaching them how to write.
“I showed them how I work, how I get ideas as a writer and how I can decide genres,” she said of writing fiction, non-fiction or poetry. “I’m focusing on poetry because I got invited by the organizers of the Peace Poem Project in Powell River.”
The Peace Poem Project is in its fifth year. Ruurs’ workshops lead up to the Peace Poems Awards Night at the end of May. Three workshops are being put on, as well as a concert and the publication of the annual Powell River International Peace-Poem Anthology. The book contains winning poems from students and honourable mentions, and is published annually by CMG Printing.
Ruurs showed students how to generate ideas, edit and rewrite, how books are published, and the querying process writers go through. Students are invited to submit their poems to the contest.
Organizer Eva van Loon said the children were excited to be involved in the workshops, and some even developed the courage to read out their poems, an opportunity they also had on April 27 at a school-wide assembly. “The quality of poems has gone up every year,” she said. “We usually get about 30 to 35 classes involved. We have as many as half the kids in [School District 47] participating.”
While this is the first year an author has been brought in for workshops, it is the fourth year for the poem-to-song workshop, with local musician Shaun Coburn, in which the children have their poems turned into songs.
Ruurs said the workshops were encouraging. “[The kids are] very excited and very keen. They’re so committed. By the time I was in grade two I was writing poems and just never stopped. Now I have 27 books published. These kinds of workshops and contests really are much more than a day of fun. It’s constructive.”
Ruurs described one of the classes where she was doing a workshop for poems called Where I Am From, in which the children wrote a poem describing something about themselves. She said it brought out the descriptiveness of the poetic imaginations. “One of the boys, instead of saying ‘I’m from playing hockey,’ said ‘I’m from sweat dripping down my face after playing hockey.’ Just makes their poems much more exciting.”
The workshops will finish up with children putting all their poems together at the school entrance on what Ruurs calls the Poetree. “The kids are printing the poems on leaf-shaped pieces of paper, spring colours, and I just built a green tree trunk with branches and we’re going to hang those poems on the tree. We’re creating a Poetree in the school hallway. It’ll be a real variety of poems blossoming on the Poetree.”
The International Peace Poem began on the Hawaiian Island of Maui in 1996 and now contains over 120,000 lines about peace from around the world. Several thousands of lines are added annually by Powell River students.
Van Loon said organizers of the competition are still seeking volunteers to be judges. More information can be found online.
The peace poems awards evening takes place at 7 pm on Thursday, May 31 at Max Cameron Theatre, Brooks Secondary School.
