Junior/Senior Project Gives One NHS Student The Chance To Write Poetry

By Eliza Hallabeck

Kaitlyn Kakadeles, one of the many  Newtown High School students currently working on a Junior/Senior Project at the school, realized a love for poetry when working on her project.

When a friend said she should do a Junior/Senior Project, Kaitlyn said she was not sure it would be the right thing for her, but now she says she never thought she would be able to write something with the type of structure her poetry has taken on.

“I started writing these poems randomly,” said Kaitlyn, “and it was really raw material. I didn’t really feel comfortable with showing a lot of people, but when I met my mentor, I knew I should just show her. And it would be a lot better once it was over with.”

Her mentor for the project, Jeanetta Miller, head of the English department at NHS, said Kaitlyn has made a large amount of progress in the few weeks they have been working together.

“She started showing me these structured poems, and I felt that was what I needed to make them better and flow,” said Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn focused on the kind of love “that you want to fall into, and you don’t want to fall out of. But stuff happens and you do.”

“I felt that writing really helps me through life,” said Kaitlyn, an aspiring journalist, “and I have a theme through all of it; love, seeing it through all my experiences, even though I am still really young.”

She had only discovered her interest in writing poetry at the start of this school year, but the junior said she became really into it once beginning the work on her Junior/Senior Project.

To start the process of reworking her raw material, Kaitlyn said they took lines from her original poetry and worked them together.

Kaitlyn is also interested on working on the project further next year, but plans to focus on studying one poet, yet to be determined, as the central inspiration for her work. She also plans to change her theme from love to something else based on her life experiences.

Kaitlyn was instructed by Ms Miller to look through the poetry at Poetryoutloud.org, to read poetry from other authors.

“I did, and I found some poems that I really like,” said Kaitlyn. She was told to use the structure in those poems, but to add her own words. “I really liked that, because it already gave me structure. I just added all the words to it. It was nice to just keep writing, and let it flow together.”

When Ms Miller agreed to be Kaitlyn’s mentor, she wanted to know how open Kaitlyn is to suggestions on her work, “to being moved along, not on the path she has chosen for herself, but beyond that. And she is very open to that,” said Ms Miller.

From the start of their work together, Ms Miller said, she was excited by Kaitlyn’s potential.

“I am her human mentor,” said Ms Miller, “her face-to-face mentor, but what really is her mentor is the poems she has read. So, she has an amazing cast of mentors she is working with right now.”

Kaitlyn said her poetry for the Junior/Senior Project course will be turned into a book, with the help of NHS teacher David DeFeo. After, her book will join other Junior/Senior Projects in the school’s library collection.

The book will have three parts, she said. The first section will be poetry she wrote separately from the project, the second section will be a collection of her poetry as inspired by poems at PoetryOutLoud.org, and the third section will consist of commentary on her work. The most inspiring poets for Kaitlyn, she said, have been Robert Browning and Robert Frost.

Working with a mentor poem, Ms Miller said, is an efficient way for novice poets to take what the original poet knows, and borrow that knowledge.

“It shortens the learning curve, I think,” Ms Miller said, “and she has made incredible effective use of that strategy.

“Kaitlyn’s ability to take her own raw material, straight from the heart, and work it into a structure has been amazing,”  she added

Ms Miller taught in the Junior/Senior Project program until a couple years ago.

While Ms Miller said Kaitlyn is not a chatty person, it is because she wants to say something with meaning, and be listened to by people who will care.

“And the poems are an extension of her voice, but, also, they are an extension of her high standards for speech,” said Ms Miller.

Kaitlyn said she is predominantly focused on putting the book together now, and most of her writing is finished.

“I never thought it would be like this,” said Kaitlyn. “I thought I would just show [Ms Miller] the poems and she would make notes and turn it into a book, or something. I never thought it would come this far, but I really like how it has come this far.” 

(Other students who are working on Junior/Senior Projects this semester who would like to discuss their projects with The Bee may contact Eliza Hallabeck at eliza@thebee.com.)