To celebrate National Poetry Month, we are sharing a few more of our students’ poems from ISB’s 4th Annual Multilingual Poetry Slam. We hope you enjoy them and are inspired to express your creativity through some poetic musings of your own! 

The 8-Ball Poem: Background

We worked as a group of five for the 4th Annual ISB Poetry Slam. The kids were put to work looking at paintings by Breughel (which have inspired Williams and Auden before them) when suddenly Zuzu asked if she could go get an 8-ball from her coat. Before you knew it, lines from the 8-ball became the words of our collective poem. The kids delighted in how the questions that they composed did not match exactly with the answers provided by the 8-ball.  We practiced several times reading the lines, and then performed them at the slam.  The kids were surprised by this compositional method, and proud of their performance!

The 8-Ball Poem
Written by Zuzu, Noah, Stella and Sarah

What color am I?                        Sorry no
What do you you know?           Most likely
Is the 8-ball alive?                      No doubt
How do you speak?                    Ask later
What’s your name?                    Try again
How do you feel?                        Rely on it
Who are you?                              Rely on it
What do you like to eat?            I say yes

The Mirror
Written by Mathilde

There is nothing as alarming as looking at yourself in the mirror.
It is alarming but everything is clearer.
All I can see is my mouth, my nose, my ears, my cheeks , my forehead and my hair.
Everything around it is only air.
It’s all black until everything has vanished.
Expect the eyes, they are banished.
Staring at the mirror, two big eyes are looking at their reflection.
This is the scary part,
This is the part that breaks my heart.
Life is divided into two sections.
The outside part and the inside part.
The mirror is exactly both of those portions.
The outside because you can see who you are.
The inside because you can see that you are a star.
Not everybody can do that, you have to really believe in yourself to see the star in you.
Some people have learned how to do it a long time ago and for some people it’s new.
So, let everybody be a star, and don’t be scared to look in the mirror you blew.

The Turkey

Written and Illustrated by McKenzie

  Dear Mr. turkey you were delichose, tasty, and yummy

  Sooo can you come on Dec. 31?

  Ok I will see you very soon

  But I will still miss you.

  I’m just so sad

  So please come back

  Bye bye.

  Sinsily McKenzie

  This is not a poem so go away

  But not you turkey

  I’m going to eat you very soon.

ISB’s 10th Annual French & Spanish Book Fair

In addition to being National Poetry Month, this April also featured ISB’s 10th Annual French and Spanish Book Fair. Students of all ages (and their parents!) browsed an incredible selection of books and magazines in Spanish and French, and teachers picked out books for their classroom libraries.  Middle School students, on hand to give their book recommendations, also held a bake sale and raised over $320 to help Vanuatu’s Lycée Français J.M.G Le Clezio, which was affected by Typhoon Pam in March 2015. Everyone had great time and left excited to start reading their new books!