Poetry Stand: How a precocious group of high school poets learned to provide verse on demand.

Weems, Richard K.; Neruda, Pablo, 1904-1973; Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892; Oral interpretation of poetry; Public officers; Rhyme

This article discusses the author's experience of giving the New Jersey Governor's School of the Arts students a drive-by poetry field trip. Drive by poetry entails loading the students into a van, cruising around a commercial area in Trenton, and pulling over near targeted pedestrians. One of the students sticks his or her head out the passenger window and serenades—or accosts—the startled pedestrian with some passionately recited lines by Walt Whitman or Pablo Neruda. The kid pops back in, rolls up the window, and the van takes off in search of the next victim. It is something that Richard K. Weems was in bad manners and an embarrassment to all that are involved. This article shows how he teaches these kids that attention to detail is important in poetry especially when searching for a rhyme. The kids got good enough that they did a poetry stand not a drive by and this was with much success.