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Poet visits Mountain View

Jeff Nathan as Sherlock Poems, Poetry Detective. Fourth grader Tiana Mackin said, "He was great and I am not usually interested in poetry." Reminder Publications submitted photo
By Courtney Llewellyn

Reminder Assistant Editor



EAST LONGMEADOW Do you know the difference between a metaphor and a simile? Better yet, do you know how to make learning language arts fun? Poet Jeff Nathan does, and he returned to Mountain View Elementary last Friday to share his wit and wisdom with the third, fourth and fifth graders there.

An engineering graduate of the University of Rochester, Nathan moved to Andover, Mass., in 1983. He got married and had four children, now ages 18 through 25, who he began writing poems for when he was 33 years old.

"I started writing for my children, who were auditioning for roles in musical theater," Nathan explained. "They had to act out a poem as part of the audition and we noticed a lot of the same poems were being used. I wanted to give my kids something new to make them stand out."

Soon, other children were asking Nathan to write for them as well. The theater group the children were auditioning for convinced him to publish his works and 11 years after he wrote that first poem, Nathan released "There's a Hippo in My Locker" in 2000. He now has three collections published, with a fourth coming out sometime next year.

"I did a lot of creative writing as a kid, but my skills didn't really bubble to the top until I had kids," he told Reminder Publications. "I've always enjoyed working with kids and when I first started my [language arts] program, the kids loved it but the teachers didn't because it was too silly. It had to be a bit more educational. I tweaked it and now we all have a lot of fun."

Nathan's most popular program is "Learning Language Arts Through Humor," which can be geared at different grade levels, based on what each grade is learning. He also has a character called "Sherlock Poems, Poetry Detective."

"Sherlock Poems is a bumbling idiot," Nathan laughed. "He makes ridiculous mistakes and the kids have a great time correcting him."

The best part of his method, however, is that the children "don't realize they're learning as they're learning," according to Nathan.

In addition to working on things like metaphors and similes, Nathan works with the elementary school students on writing backwards (from the end to the beginning) and how to improve brainstorming skills.

"[Nathan] does what I look for in an enrichment program," Mountain View principal Carolyn Wallace said. "He brings things the students can use right now and the fourth grade teachers are very pleased with the work he does with poetry."

Fourth graders are required to take a more extensive language arts MCAS test and Wallace said in the past, the students at Mountain View had been having some issues analyzing poetry on the exam.

"One of the gifted and talented program teachers [Kim Turnberg] found him last year when we were looking for authors to visit," Wallace stated. Nathan first visited the school last year, and Wallace said she'd like to see him continue to visit the school in the future.

"His humor is definitely at the kids' level, as are his words and his concepts," Wallace explained. "I wouldn't be surprised if we invited him back every year because the students learn different things every year. This is a program where children aren't learning the exact same thing at each level."

"My goal is to help kids learn through humor," Nathan said. "They have a blast while I'm there and they get a different perspective on what they're learning. Between the classroom work and what I do, I think they're getting the complete package."

Nathan's visit was funded by the Mountain View PTO and by a grant from the East Longmeadow Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

To learn more about Nathan, visit his Web site at www.jeffnathanpoems.com.