Tim Conroy teaching poetry writing to third graders at Lady’s Island Elementary
I want to want to like poetry. I really do. But my relationship with it has always been complicated. In elementary school, teachers—or in my case, nuns—didn’t force poetry’s structural elements down our throats. They assigned a wide range of poets, and we had to read the entire piece, not “excerpts.” We even had to memorize poems; a few I can recite to this day. Over time, I became comfortable with poetry’s secret language of stanzas, lines, meter, metaphor, similes, couplets, iambic pentameter—but what I remember most is reading poetry as a means of excavating the story.
Once, I wrote a poem and handed it shyly to my teacher after class. The next day, she pulled me aside and kindly told me I had a flair for poetry, an astounding compliment from a stern nun. I was thrilled.
But it didn’t stick, that flair for poetry. I moved on to other ways to wrangle words and seldom sought it out again.
So, flash forward to last week, when Beaufort poet Tim Conroy graciously agreed to teach a poetry writing workshop to third graders at Lady’s Island Elementary School. Tim—Pat Conroy’s brother—is a gentle soul and a natural teacher. Storybuilders, a program of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, meets in the library once a week and is staffed by devoted volunteers from all walks of life. He talked about metaphors and similes and encouraged the students to be as silly and outrageous with their descriptions as they wanted. This year’s theme, Cooking Up Stories, revolved around recipes, and the poems were about their favorite foods.
One child wrote about eating shrimp that “felt like a tadpole in my mouth.” Another described s’mores as a “sugary waterfall filling my sweet tooth.” There was spaghetti that looked like a bag of electronic cords, and pancakes floating by like fluffy clouds.
Tim even wrote a poem about the experience:
The Poets of Lady’s Island Elementary School
By Tim Conroy
Their imagination roils
In a stainless pot
Whose lid reflects
their eternal faces
wafting with esteem.
These poets cook, dream
remind us of the freshness
of the world again.
They stir us with poems
And feed us in their kitchens.
That night, still on a metaphorical high, I asked my eight-year-old grandson to describe what it feels like to get ready for a golf tournament. He didn’t even hesitate. “It’s like my brain jumps out of my head, opens a door, and inside is a giant waterpark!”
“It seems you have a flair for poetry,” I whispered into the FaceTime screen. Instantly, I had a sharp stab of regret that I didn’t think to tell it to all of the poets of Lady’s Island Elementary School.
But I will.
Visit the Pat Conroy Literary Center – Where Stories Come Alive in Beaufort
Discover the heart of Lowcountry literature at the Pat Conroy Literary Center! The Center nurtures a love of reading and writing for all ages through workshops, author events, book clubs, and more.
