A Glimpse into St. Mark's Poetry Week

Eliza Visconsi ‘25

On Monday, April 22nd, the St. Mark’s community entered a week of poetry celebration. With various events, like “haiku for ice cream,” poetry contests, and daily poems shared with all St. Markers, this week was full of opportunities to embrace individual and collaborative creativity. Ms. McCann and her Poetry Workshop class took the lead this week, making school announcements and encouraging their peers to get involved. Whether they loved poetry or not, many members of the St. Mark’s community engaged in the activities that Poetry Week had to offer. 

St. Mark’s held a week-long poetry contest, including various categories for poets. The following Wednesday, May 1st, Ms. McCann recognized the winners for each type of poetry submission during the school meeting. The categories and respective winners are as follows. The award for most successful poem of three lines or fewer went to Izzy Mundel, with a poem titled “M P D.” The most meaningful poem and art collaboration went to Jihu Choi and Eliza Visconsi, with “Waiting for Sea Glass.” 

An Excerpt from “Waiting for Sea Glass” by Eliza Visconsi and Jihu Choi  

Let the water come to you.

Watch it breaking in

To a house already broken in. 

At long last

The waves wash up the 

Refurbished, recycled rectangle glass 

Under a night sky, infinite. 

It is cautiously cradled

In the hands of a stranger,

Lonely but alright. 

Add it to the collection. 

Jihu Choi acquired another title with her poem “Omw,” winning the most successful individual poem prize. Ms. Bates’ Short Story class won  the title of best “exquisite corpse” poem with their poem “It's Past 9:30.” Ms. McCann’s advisory (The McCannics, including Gina Yang, Divi Bhaireddy, Teni Ogunjumo, and Emily Ling) won the award for the best advisory poem with “Love Letters.” Ms. Caron’s poem, “Umbilicus,” won the most successful faculty poem award, and Wendy Wu’s “I Saw Life Expand” for best poetry written at the “haiku for ice cream” event. 

“Umbilicus” by Ms. Caron

Round and folded

like an ear.

And I press my lobe

to your belly 

to listen, perhaps

to hear, what secrets

your intestinal

gurgles might hold. 

I trace your navel

with my fingertip,

imagine love flowing

from me to you 

like the blood swirled

between us those months

we were connected. 

The stump, dried 

and disconnected,

sits in a clear baggie.

Reminds me of distances

you will grow from me. 

Haiku by Wendy Wu

“I saw life expand / fireworks in miniature / muted green fungi”

To conclude the week, on Friday, April 26th, during the afternoon community block, Ms. McCann’s poetry class hosted a “haiku for ice cream” event in the Lion’s Den. In exchange for an originally written haiku, students were rewarded with ice cream sundaes. Students packed the Lion’s Den, many motivated by the ice cream and some excited to share a piece of their original poetry. Either way, students were enthusiastic about their chance to write a haiku. The turnout of this event shows the level of involvement that students have in taking advantage of opportunities and how willing they are to show up for their community! Maddy Bean of the sixth form recounts her experience with this year’s poetry week, saying, “During poetry week, I had a lot of fun and got a lot of really great memories from it!” Overall, poetry week allowed students, faculty, and staff to express their creativity, learn, and appreciate the art of poetry. 

Congratulations to the winners of these awards for their artistry and originality and for sharing their talent with the St. Mark’s community. 

Classics Banquet 2024

Abby Stone ‘26

This is a photo of Dr. Harwood’s Advanced Topics in Latin Literature class. From left to right: Jolin Yu ’25, Catherine Zhang ’26, Maribeth Fitzgerald ’26, Dr. Harwood, Lyla Cass ’26, Crystal Hui ’24, and Andrea Xu ’25.

Classics students and faculty are hardworking, creative, and driven. On Thursday, May 16th, they were celebrated like the ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses during the annual Classics Banquet. This event commemorates the success of all Classics students and faculty for the 2023-2024 academic year with Italian food, lively class presentations, and translation prize awards. 

To kick off the evening, the Classics Department catered from Arturo’s Ristorante with chicken parmesan, pasta, meatballs, Caesar salad, and garlic knots, all of which were delicious. The most sought-after item of the night was the garlic knots; each table pined for more as they laughed and applauded throughout the rest of the night! 

During the banquet, Latin and Greek present their projects, ranging from performing Greek rituals, filming plays inspired by the Latin textbook (Suburani), creating reality TV shows and competitions with classical gods and goddesses as the contestants, and so much more. The Greek II class concluded on a strong note by presenting “The Classical Diploma Capstone Project.” The class created a zine, a miniature magazine answering the question, “What is the value of a classical education in a modern world?”The zine is titled “What κλασσικαλ Remains?” (κλασσικαλ meaning classical in Greek letters) and explores three themes: the bridge between the past and the present, art and interpretation, and fragments and ambiguity. This zine demonstrates the cultural experiences these Classics Diploma students have acquired by traveling abroad as well as the knowledge they have learned taking both Greek and Latin. Overall, the projects portion of the Classics Banquet is a fun-spirited and intellectual way to culminate the academic year.

After the projects, Departmental Book prizes for the best sight translation of a passage of Greek or Latin were awarded to Ada Chen ‘27 in Latin I, Bella Ong ‘26 in Latin II, Jamie Li ‘25 in Latin III, Catherine Zhang ‘26 in Advanced Latin, Jamie Li ‘25 in Greek I, Delin Liu ‘24 in Greek II, and Netty Andrews ‘25 in Greek III.

The night ended with a standing ovation for Dr. Harwood, the Classics Department Head, who will be going on sabbatical for the 2024-2025 school year. Dr. Harwood is an integral part of the Classics Department’s success; her devotion to teaching Classics and inspiring her students to understand the profound relevance of this subject is outstanding.

Congratulations to all the award winners, the Classical Diploma Scholars, Dr. Harwood, and everyone else in Classics who worked hard all year!