Every Monday, the bell rings while students stream out the doors in a dash for lunch. Some, however, find themselves in room 252, the Poetry Club. Laughter flows through the air as the club commences. As April comes to an end, the club is more popular than ever. April was National Poetry Month! Poetry Month was established in 1996 and ever since has concentrated on celebrating significant poetic elements in American society.

Throughout the month, festivals and exhibitions were held to spotlight poets and to vitalize support for their work. For senior Jackson Bramlette, poetry has provided a valuable outlet for self-expression.

“Poetry is a little different from writing an essay or writing a story; you have all the freedom in the world to write about whatever you want. It’s a really good medium for expressing feelings in a way that can sometimes be hard [to express] in other styles of writing,” Bramlette said.

Bramlette was eager to create a safe space for all who wished to share their poetic work and discuss others’ pieces. In the spring semester of 2022, he founded the Poetry Club and has been the president ever since.
“Throughout high school, I have been writing poems on my phone and in journals, and I realized that I wanted to allow others to also share their passion for poetry,” Bramlette said. Bramlette joined the local organization, the Marin Poetry Center (MPC), to further pursue his love for poetry as one of their youth ambassadors. Being a youth ambassador has allowed him to take advantage of public spaces for projects through collaboration between MPC and the Poetry Club.

In light of National Poetry Month, the club worked over the course of a few months on the High School Arts Mashup exchange program, an exhibit in the Belvedere Tiburon Library that fused art and poetry. Presenting on March 30, the exhibition hung throughout April. The project brought students in the district together as they collaborated with artists to create poems and art that responded to each other’s pieces. Active participant in the Poetry Club and senior, Bella Kraus, submitted a few pieces for the display. The distinctive exhibit impelled Kraus to contemplate others’ art through her own lens.

“Poetry is the combination of art, emotion, meaning, but also interpretation. It is most beautiful when audiences can apply their own [personal] situations to the art. It’s a medium to which other people can relate and apply to themselves… It really brings people together,” Kraus said.

The club comes together in consistent meetings to read and draft poems. With Bramlette leading from the front of the classroom, everyone engages in a warm-up prompt or small assignment. The club needs no prerequisites to join, creating an encouraging atmosphere where members feel confident enough to stand up and read their verses. Many members appreciate the outlet the club has given them, including senior Odin Crabtree, the club’s treasurer.

“Traditional writing is usually not my strong suit, so to have a creative means of writing [such as poetry] to express myself in a way that [can be] more meaningful… I enjoy [the club] a lot,” Crabtree said.

As a musician, Kraus expresses herself through her music and weaves poetry with her songwriting. She sees art in everything, enabling her to bring beauty to all she experiences.

“Poetry isn’t just confined to the limits of pencil and paper. It can exhibit itself through many different art forms. So whether that be music or dance, it’s really up to the artist’s interpretation,” Kraus said.

Combining poetry and science, the Mill Valley Library is holding an event on the weekend of May 19-21. Including an ongoing community poem, a nature walk and more, the event is open to all poets of varying experiences. Members of the Poetry Club plan to partake and others are encouraged to participate as well.

“[Poetry is] so undefined [that] you can’t do it wrong. I feel like most people have a soft spot for it because there are very few barriers,” Kraus said.