by Tyler Ryder
In honor of poetry month, NPHS has sprung a poet tree!
The Poet tree is a creation sitting right outside of the bathrooms closest to NP’s library. It is sculpted out of colored paper and has post-it notes on the trees. Each post it note includes a small poem and next to the tree is a shelf of poetry books available to check out.
I spoke to Blake Holman, the school librarian, to learn more about the tree and to see what he had hoped to do with it.
“[The poet tree is] a way to share poems, is the main idea. I wanted to do something, it’s a first stab,”said Holman. “I know a previous librarian, Mr. G passed out poems in the hallway.”
Holman explained that he had seen a similar idea online, using actual trees and tying the poems to them with string.
Holman also added on what poetry means to him.
“I think it’s a lot of the meaning that’s in prose, but condensed. The context matters even more.” said Holman. “Obviously, music is popular, and you can think of lyric writing as a form of poetry.
Holman said on that unfortunately, there hasn’t been much of (if any) increase in the borrowing of poetry related items from the library.
In honor of poetry month I decided to borrow a poetry book from the NPHS library. I chose “The Sun and Her Flowers” by Rupi Kaur.
Released on October 3rd, 2017, the book is a compilation of mostly adult poems detailing a brutal break up and everything that follows. The book itself is organized in 5 “chapters,” starting at wilting and ending at blooming.
The poems range from a few words to multiple pages. The subjects are anywhere on the spectrum from recovering from sexual assault, to learning to love someone new. Kaur accompanies most of the poems with small drawings that provide a some context.
I haven’t finished all the poems in the book, but I recommend it if you’re looking to feel plenty of heavy emotions.
Despite this, I would rate this book a 9/10 for clear demonstrations of powerful emotions, as well as being well written and engrossing.