The Dodge Poetry Festival: Thumbs Up from Montclair High School Students

Montclair High School students gave even more than two thumbs up to their overall experience at the Dodge Poetry Festival, sponsored by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The four-day festival, which takes place every two years in Newark, New Jersey, invites high school students to come and observe poetry live. This year's readers included Sharon Olds and Mark Doty.

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Poetry does not always center on images of the sublime.

Sometimes, a poem might center on feminine hygiene.

That was one takeaway Montclair High School students had at the Dodge Poetry Festival High School Student Day on Friday, Oct. 24, when poet Sharon Olds read her poem "Douche-Bag Ode."

Said Allison Isidore, a senior, "We looked at one another, going, 'Did she just talk about this?'"

Isidore said she also liked poet Mark Doty: "He talked about a lost bird, and said he thought about how he couldn't talk about 9/11, and how loved ones were not found. I thought that was really cool."

Twenty-seven MHS students attended the event. The four-day festival in Newark takes place every two years, and High School Student Day, according to Martin Farawell, poetry director for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and director of the Dodge Poetry Festival, attracted more than 4,000 students from 250 schools in 12 states. Student day is free, but students must preregister with their schools.

Before he was the festival director, Farawell taught high school, including teaching at Montclair Kimberley Academy. He said he lived in Montclair for 10 years.

With 4,000 adolescents, "there's a lot of energy there," Farawell said with a laugh. But the students are so engaged they are completely quiet. The students also ask the poets questions, which are "spontaneous, funny and touching in a way that an academic lecture rarely is." [...]

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