Community Poetry & The PoeTree Project
Celebrating
National Poetry Month with the community since 2014
The PoeTree Project: It is amazing to think The PoeTree Project Turns 11 years old in 2025! First created in 2014 by 120 first-graders from Oakridge Elementary School in Arlington, VA, The PoeTree, in its newest form, is back at Studio PAUSE to celebrate National Poetry Month 2025 with community poetry.
This year we are excited to create a new PoeTree at the Columbia Pike Studio to display as our “Window to Multicultural” project. We will be working with artist Sharmila Karamchandani, who had worked with us in creating the first PoeTree. This time, the tree is created using a cardboard tube, wooden dowels, fabric reused from our other projects, thermostat wire, and paper.
Community Poetry: All through April we will work with partners to bring poetry from the community to be displayed at The PoeTree—working with the students at AHC’s After School Program at Gates of Ballston, and with the teens of their College and Career Readiness program. Seniors from Arlington’s 55+ program will share their haikus, and poems by Del Ray poet Elaina Palincsar, featured in the Studio exhibit The Poetry Fence Comes to Arlington!, will also be shared in English and in Spanish, translated by PAUSEr Jorge Rogachevsky. And more! In this version of The PoeTree Project, we have poems from Arlington Public School high school teens and it is crazy to think that the first-graders from 2014 are seniors this year!
When I spoke with Barcroft Apartments resident, poet Ronald J. Smith, about our celebration of National Poetry Month, he said he didn’t know about it. Yet, he had been writing poems since he was 15—almost 50 years! So I am extremely happy to take National Poetry Month into the community with the help of the community.
Community PAUSE: Celebrating Community Poetry Check out the full story below and join us to celebrate poetry from our community on Saturday, April 26, from 2-4 pm. See The PoeTree, listen to the poems, and to share your poems as well!
Oakridge Elementary School, Arlington, VA 22202
2014: The PoeTree Project was inspired by a 17th century Japanese folding screen
showing a cherry blossom tree decorated with poetry slips, and a Studio exhibit by two men inspired by trees and wood. Combine that with April being National Poetry Month, and a first grade teacher, Ms Guyton, wanting to bring 120 first-graders on a walking field trip to the Studio, and The PoeTree Project blossomed. Photos, above: The project logo, teaching first graders a lesson on how to write haikus at Oakridge ES, student poems on a poetry slip of their choice. The PoeTree at the Studio fills up with children’s poems. Ms Guyton helps install The PoeTree at Oakridge ES library, and the two librarians are thrilled to showcase the poetry of first-graders.
2016: The PoeTree Project was back at Oakridge ES but this time celebrating Arlington County’s special program to foster tree-love, Arbor Day Celebration. At the event, the Virginia Department of Forestry officially awarded Arlington its 20th consecutive Tree City USA designation. The multigenerational celebration featured student activities, a tree-planting ceremony and an official Arbor Day Proclamation. Students wrote haikus about spring and hung them on the tree planted on their school grounds. Photos, right: Poetry slips and poems. Students help plant the tree with their poetry slips hanging from it.
Haikus in the Neighborhood, Studio at Avalon, Arlington, VA 22206
2015: The PoeTree Project went off-site at our first Studio when the Writing PAUSE group walked in the neighborhood, stopped at blossoming trees, wrote haikus, and hung them up. Even as all the world seems to go crazy about the trees in DC we can make time to appreciate the flowering trees in our neighborhood and pause to write haikus and hang it from them. Photos, above: Star Magnolias were in bloom, as were Cherry Blossoms.
Gates of Ballston After School Program (elementary), Buckingham Studio, Arlington, VA 22203
2022: Our Studio location at the Gates of Ballston apartment complex in the historic Buckingham neighborhood of Arlington is located in the Rinker Community Center. Here, we work with the residents, including students attending AHC’s After School Program. After the COVID-19 pandemic when the community center was open again and the kids returned, we did The PoeTree Project. They wrote poems and hung them on the two cherry blossom trees outside the front doors of the community center. Photos, above: Students display the poetry slips. Students hang their poetry slips in the cherry blossom tree outside the community center. Close-up of a poem.
2025: This year, the cherry trees outside the Rinker bloomed in March and so it was time to bring The PoeTree Project to the children. Some older students remembered doing this when they were younger. Some students wrote wonderful haikus and others wrote acrostics using the word Spring. Then we read all of the 18 poems aloud. Later, we went outside and they spent time with the trees and Sushmita hung the poetry slips up in the tree. One student asked, “Ms Sush, are you Japanese?” Sush replied she is not, and added, “But we can always learn new things from the arts and culture of various people, and today we learned from a Japanese tradition to write poems in appreciation of spring.” Photos, right: Students pick a slip of paper that speaks to them. On the flip side they write their final poem. Students with their poetry slips hanging from the cherry blossom tree outside the Rinker Community Center.
Arlington Weaves Etc., Columbia Pike Studio
2025: The participants of Arlington Weaves Etc. visit the Columbia Pike Studio twice a month for Art PAUSE. The program supports individuals with disabilities. Participants within the program learn to weave and produce handcrafted woven art and includes color tote bags, pencil cases and so much more. At Studio PAUSE they are excited to explore creative projects in their own way.
They have been exploring writing poems inspired by the March Studio exhibit “The Poetry Fence Comes to Arlington!” For The PoeTree Project they explored writing haikus. They picked colorful and textured poetry slips and chose ribbons to go with them. Then they wrote their haikus, and read them aloud.
AHC’s College & Career Readiness program, Pike Studio
2025: The teens of AHC’s CCR program visited the Columbia Pike Studio for a poetry workshop with local poet Yessania Arias. She told them her story and how she got into poetry and how different people like different things about poetry. She also shared about being bilingual and encouraged the teens to write in any language and script they wanted.
The teens saw a short presentation about The PoeTree Project and that was when one student asked me to stop and go back to the photos from the first PoeTree project. He asked, “Was that at the Avalon?”
“Yes!” I replied. “That’s where our first Studio location was.”
“I think I was there!”
“Did you go to Oakridge?”
“Yes. He and he did too!” he pointed to two other students.
“That’s Ms Beth, the librarian!” one said.
And just like that, I had met 3 students who had participated in our first PoeTree Project! The cool thing is that Brenda Quintanilla, the regional College & Career Readiness Coordinator who brought the teens to the workshop, herself was a teen when she visited the first Studio for a summer bookmaking workshop series. She also had gone to Oakridge and decided to get the Oakridge gang in a photo.
Arlington’s 55+ Program, Pike Studio
Walking Challenge Group: In our first collaboration with Arlington’s 55+ Program, Studio PAUSE was the Walk Leader for the group on Wed, April 9. The group walked from the Arlington Mill Community Center to the W&OD Trail. PAUSEr and poet RJ told them about using the different senses and listening for sounds of Spring. As the trail comes up and onto Columbia Pike we heard sounds of the city. PAUSEr LouLou Marino invited them to notice the contrast between woods and city. Then we crossed and walked on the trail towards S. George Mason Dr where the community gardens are. We turned back and came to the Studio where they picked a poetry slip and wrote their haikus.
Photos, above: Walking from AMCC to the Trail, RJ talks about listening to sounds of Spring, and walkers see a duck! Photo, right: Counting syllables and writing haikus at the Studio.
Buckingham Youth Brigade, Buckingham Studio
The participants of the Buckingham Youth Brigade have been coming to the Studio for almost 10 years to engage in art and writing activities! It was so wonderful that they could participate in The PoeTree Project 2025. However, as it was Arlington Public School’s Spring Break week, we had fewer participants. But the poems were so cool!
Photos, above: Writing Haikus, poems, and poetry slips they picked.
Arlington 55+ Social Club, Arlington Mill Community Center
The participants of the Social 55 group were mostly Spanish-speakers and so I was thrilled when Jorge Rogachevsky, retired professor of Spanish and Latin American studies, volunteered to do the session with me. Writing haikus in Spanish is hard as the language uses more words than English does but Jorge encouraged them to break some rules. And I allowed them to write longer poems. It was so wonderful when one participant shared how the thoughts were buried deep within and she appreciated the change to bring them forth, in poetry.
Photos, above: Jorge explains the project to the participants, the poetry slips they picked, the poems they wrote.
Photos, right: They were invited to draw as well and many did, taking their time to let their thoughts come out beautifully.
Visitors Write Haikus, Pike Studio
It was wonderful to have people drop in at the Studio to learn about the project and write their haikus to join in! As of noon on April 23, we have 88 poems in 4 languages!! Wow! what an amazing month of poetry it has been with our community!
Photos, above: A 9 year-old from San Francisco visiting Arlington writes a haiku; co-workers and co-PAUSErs write haikus; Nazneen writes her first haiku in Bangla (work in progress!); Victor doesn’t care about the 3-line rule; Susan counts syllables, and John comes to pick up LouLou and stops to write.
Video, right: Kori reads her haiku and hangs it up on The PoeTree.