Students from Jamestown High School share their original poetry, inspired by the theme “Poetry Is…” The poem were written and recorded after students from Elizabeth Rowe-Baehr’s 9th grade English classes worked with Sony Ton-Aime, who serves as the Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution.

Several students stopped by the WRFA studios and were recorded as they recited their original works. The recording were featured Friday, May 19, 2023 on WRFA’s Small Things Considered morning show.

Thank you to Sony for developing this project and also to Betsy her students for sharing their work with the Jamestown community via WRFA.

Students from Jamestown High School share their original poetry, inspired by the theme “where poetry lives.” The poem were written and recorded after students from Betsy Rowe-Baehr’s 10th grade English classes worked with Sony Ton-Aime, who serves as the Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution.

Several students also stopped by the WRFA studios and were recorded as they recited their original works. The recording of those 18 students were featured Friday, April 29 on WRFA’s Small Things Considered morning show.

Thank you to Sony for developing this project and also to Betsy her students for sharing their work with the Jamestown community via WRFA.

WRFA’s Jason Sample talks with Sony Ton-Aime, Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution, and Betsy Rowe-Baehr, Jamestown High School English teacher. The two share details about The Holidays in Poetry – a new community project combing poetry and the holiday season. Part of the project involved Mr. Ton-Aime working with Mrs. Rowe-Baehr’s 10th grade English classes.

Several students also stopped by the WRFA studios and were recorded as they recited their original works, including one en espanol. The recording of those 15 students (along with a poem by Mrs. Rowe-Baehr) follow the interview. You can also find them individually in the playlist above, or by visiting The Holiday in Poetry playlist page on Soundcloud.

But they will also be featured at various times at the top of each hour, starting 7am on Dec. 24 and continuing through 8pm on Dec. 25.

Thank you to Sony for developing this project and also to Betsy her students for sharing their work with the Jamestown community via WRFA.

Happy Holidays to the entire Community.

CLASS 1

Betsy Rowe-Baehr (left), students from her 9:30am 10th grade class featured on WRFA, and Sony Ton-Aime , director of literary arts at Chautauqua.

CLASS 2

Betsy Rowe-Baehr (left) and students from her 10:45am 10th grade class featured on WRFA.

CLASS 3

Betsy Rowe-Baehr (left) and students from her 1:05pm 10th grade class featured on WRFA.

Sony Ton-Aime

The 17th Annual Murray Bob Lecture will feature Chautauqua Institution‘s Sony Ton-Aime this Thursday at the Prendergast Library.

Ton-Aime is a Haitian poet, essayist, and translator. In addition to his book, “LaWomann,” he is the author of the Haitian-Creole translation of the book “Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story.” He also is a co-founding editor of ID-13, a journal that publishes the work of incarcerated people.

Library Community Outreach and Programming Manager Jennifer Champ said this year’s lecture will be in person after being virtual in 2020, “His lecture’s title is “Writing for Pleasure in Service of Bridge Building.” So he’s talking about writing and connecting people through maybe differences that they have, of writing for the pleasure of writing, and poetry, and that kind of thing. And after the lecture, the Chautauqua Poetry Makerspace is going to be set up in the community room and people can partake in that to see how that works.”

The free lecture and makerspace event take place 6:30 to 8:00pm tomorrow, December 2nd. Masks are required for all people visiting the library.