Levittown Students Celebrate Poetry Month

In recognition of May as National Poetry Month, students throughout the Levittown School District celebrated their favorite poets during “Poem in Your Pocket Day.”

At Gardiners Avenue Elementary School, Hempstead Town Councilman Gary Hudes, Levittown Superintendent of Schools Dr. James Grossane, Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Mark Flower, and many other guests read poetry to various classes during the day.

Grossane reminded the students in Ms. Poulos’s class that poets often place meaning in their works. “Poems can be fun and silly, but sometimes they have a message or a moral,” he told the students as he read poetry from Jeff Moss’s The Butterfly Jar. 

Flower read “Mother Doesn’t Want a Dog” to first-grade students in Pat Caputo’s class from Eric Carle’s Animals, Animals. Councilman Hudes reminded the students in Christina Penna and Annette Schempp’s fourth-grade class that the greatest part about reading is the use of our imagination. He entertained the students with a variety of fun poems, including poet Kenn Nesbitt’s “I Have Noodles in My Nostrils” and  “Welcome Back to School.”

After each reading, the students were encouraged to stand up and read a poem that they carried around in their pocket during this special day.