Spring of 2021

School was still not back to normal after the pandemic, with some students & staff meeting in the building in alternating groups and other students & staff still meeting only online. Those were the days of Zoom and Seesaw and Google Classroom. But Ms. Kiiru—former ELA teacher, then-Reading Interventionist, eventual Library Assistant, and lifelong poetry enthusiast & writer—imagined a time in the not-distant future when everyone would be back at school together. And in the flush of that optimism, she submitted a proposal to the Sun Prairie Education Foundation, which generously awarded a grant for her to begin something new. Something that would connect people. Something that would give all those Northside students—who had long been languishing in the deep, depressing recesses of Zoom meetings—a fresh way to hone and display their brilliant creativity and passionate insight. Poetry to the rescue!   

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Spring of 2022

School was back in full swing and Ms. Kiiru was back at Northside, this time as the Library Assistant. She announced a new group called POETICS—Poets Of Every Type Inspiring & Changing Society—and a bold, clever group of 4th- and 5th-graders stepped up, writing imaginative original poetry, sharing it on morning announcements, and performing an original group poem for the 2022 Sun Prairie Juneteenth Celebration.

School year 2022-23

Our group doubled in size and multiplied its impact: meeting weekly to read & write poetry, hosting Madison Poet Laureate Angela Trudell Vasquez for an all-school assembly, leading "I Am Somebody" for the school each week after Ms. Campbell's much-mourned departure, and being invited to write and perform an original group poem for the 2023 Sun Prairie Martin Luther King Jr Day Celebration.