Troy High School senior Riley Williams was so inspired by a poem she heard in Megan Moore’s CCP British Literature class that she reached out to the man who wrote it. That resulted in the poet speaking to Williams' CCP British Literature class and an English 10 Inclusion class taught by Meredith Parris.
“Earlier this school year in CCP British Literature, students and I read a poem called ‘Kid, this is October,’ by Jeffrey Bean for ‘Poem of the Day,’ a daily poem all of my students read in my English classes,” Moore said. “Meredith Parris picked out this poem to share in our English 10 Inclusion classes, and I carried it over to my senior students.
“Riley loved the poem and asked about the meaning of the last two lines when we read it in class. We discussed possibilities, but she wanted to know more. She took it upon herself to seek out Mr. Bean's contact information via his website and email him about his poem. He responded and the two have been carrying a conversation over email about poetry -- pretty cool.
At Riley's request, Mr. Bean recorded a short talk about poetry for the two teachers to share with their students. In the talk, he also reads one of his poems.
“The fact that Mr. Bean took 30 minutes out of his day to talk about poetry with a bunch of strangers on the Internet is remarkable,” Moore said. “The fact that this happened because Riley took the initiative to reach out to him is even more so. In a typical year, students get to experience the ‘community’ aspect of education, but the circumstances at play this year have made that trickier. It was lovely to have a guest speaker ‘back in the building’ again. Three cheers for Riley Williams for making it happen.”