O, Miami is such a blessing in my life.
O, Miami is proof that poetry can change lives. This 2021 year-in-review chapbook of student highlights is proof — it contains poems written by elementary school students in Miami. Some of those students were my students last Spring! Teaching poetry, in person and online, to 4th and 5th graders in English and Spanish is a constant source of joy for me. It stretches me and helps me grow as an educator, as a poet, as a person.
Look for Jacob, Amaranta, and Santiago’s poems in this chapbook – their poems were written in my class! Two of the poems were from a prompt inspired by Microgramas by Ecuadorian poet Jorge Luis Andrade ❤
If you believe in good work being done in the world, work that impacts an entire community like Miami – then please consider donating to O, Miami. My students love to write and learn about poetry every week. They are direct recipients of your dollars turning into poems in their minds and hearts. This year I’m teaching poetry in Spanish to 4th-grade students at Morningside K-8 Academy, teaming up again with Ms. Alvarez, their Spanish teacher. Other poets are teaching poetry in English and Creole at Morningside and other schools. It’s a wonderful team and I’m honored to get to do this with them.
You can read all the students’ work and all about O, Miami’s work in classrooms around Miami-Dade here: O, Miami in the Classroom
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
Not Enough Poetry 