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.
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.