“Be a part of the beautiful people because we are beautiful in the beginning, end, and every time in between.” There’s a split second of silence, then resounding applause echoes off the walls as freshman Litzy Tafolla finishes reading her poem. 

Three generations are gathered on comfortable couches and tables facing a podium, enjoying warm hot cocoa and delicious pastries. For this one night, the Kovler Family Library has transformed into a cozy cafe. 

Poetry Night at Parker is an annual Nightviews event, where poets from the Parker community come together to share and listen to original poetry. This event provides an open, inviting space for students, faculty, and parents to share poems with the Parker community. The poems can be new, old, or still a work in progress. Everyone is invited to share, listen, or both.

This year’s Poetry Night took place on November 4th in the Parker library. It used to take place in the Heller Auditorium but was later moved after much debate. “We like it where it is now in the library because it feels less formal and less intimidating,” upper school English teacher Matt Laufer said. “It’s meant to be the kind of thing where you can just show up even at the last minute and read. There’s no preset program or order and so on.”

Poetry Night is designed to be a supportive space to share. Snaps and applause filled the room after each performance, with an occasional laugh during the reading. 

“It depends on the poem, but I would say that if a younger person has a poem that’s in that slam style, we get more of that participation, not the dry room,” seventh grade English teacher Kate Tabor said. “But, I think that when it’s a parent or when it’s a teacher sometimes it feels a little more dry, there’s not as much audience response. It depends on the poems.”

Most students who read said that they felt fully supported by the audience. “I was pretty calm, there weren’t that many people there and it wasn’t really a space to be nervous because everyone was doing the same thing, and there weren’t any standards to reach,” junior Grace Conrad said.

This year, 15 poets read pieces in front of more than 40 audience members including parents, faculty, middle school students, and upper school students. The poems ranged from comedic tercets to Post-it note brainstorms to birthday wishes to page-long poems diving deep into society’s flaws. Some poets read their own work while others shared for those who couldn’t make it.

“I thought it was awesome that there were 6th graders and then there were seniors reading poems, and teachers, which is like a thirty-year age difference at least,” junior Matthew Garchick said. For Tafolla, seeing younger kids read reminded her of when she read poetry at that age.

For some, this night is a space to try out new poems. For others, they’re sharing an assignment from one of their English classes. For Tafolla, it’s an opportunity to share a deeply held passion. “I’ve been writing poetry since 5th grade, so going on four years,” she said. “I really just performed in my old school and at an open mic that was at a cafe that my poetry coach had done.”  

Tafolla has also performed in festivals and is part of the Slam Poetry club at Parker.  “I like performing, it’s one of my favorite things to do, and to share a piece of poetry especially being new to Parker is a different way for people to know me.”

This night of community sharing is organized and run by a committee of faculty members and some alumni, including Principal Dan Frank, Sarah Butterfield, Elise Paschen, Mike Mahaney, Kate Tabor, Matt Laufer, and occasionally other members of the English department. They started planning the dates, layout, and advertising for this year’s Poetry Night last spring. Many of them also share poetry each year at this event.

Poetry Night first began at Parker seven years ago when Dr. Frank approached Parker alum, parent, and professional poet Elise Paschen about creating a poetry series at Parker. This conversation ultimately led to the Poetry at Parker program, which includes the autumn Poetry Night as well as Jeanne Harris Hansell Visiting Poet-in-Residence in the spring. 

The poet-in-residence is sponsored in part by the Jeanne Harris Hansell Endowed Fund for Poetry, established in the name of Jeanne Harris Hansell ’45, to ensure the continued success of the “Poetry at Parker” series, as well as to allow the school to host renowned guest poets, many of whom are poet laureates.

Paschen not only helped create Poetry Night; she has also read a piece at each event until this year. Her favorite aspect of the night was “just seeing the vibrancy of poetry and what it means to the Parker community.” “I take part in many many readings, and the poetry at Parker is very special because it is the only one I’ve taken part in which has to do with an entire school coming together and sharing their work,” Paschen said. “You see the whole range of what a community produces in terms of poetry.”

Paschen also commended the English department for their dedication to this event. “I just love the fact that Parker has all these English teachers who feel passionate about poetry and who actually write poetry themselves.”

English teachers attempt to time assignments so that students have recent poems that they might consider reading. It’s not required by any teacher to attend the event, but students are encouraged to at least come if not read a piece.

Upper school English teacher Matt Laufer has recently been playing with the idea of offering extra credit to students who take part in Poetry Night. “I default to students just wanting to be there and have it be out of the love of it as corny as that sounds, and sort of a pure desire rather than coerced… I think it’s my job to try to make a culture such that they want to be there.”

As far as middle school participation, timing poses a bigger obstacle. “The challenge, of course, is that it’s at seven o’clock at night, and most middle school students need to get their parents to bring them back,” seventh grade English teacher Kate Tabor said.

The timing does have some benefits. “I liked that it was after school so I didn’t have all my homework on my mind,” seventh-grader Uma Morris, a Poetry Night attendee, said.

Students will have plenty more opportunities to flex their poetry muscles throughout the year. The middle school English curriculum builds on their writing skills each year. In the upper school, numerous poetry extracurriculars are offered such as the Slam Poetry Club and Poetry Club. Upperclassmen can enroll in a poetry elective taught by Mr. Laufer. And, in the spring, the entire Parker community will hear from this year’s visiting poet laureate Natasha Trethewey. Poetry Night at the cozy Kovler cafe was a great way to kick off a year of poetry.