Poetry Club - Mrs. Sarah Blum

The middle school poetry club has spent the last few weeks talking about the poetry form odes.  Odes are poems "in which a person expresses a strong feeling of love or respect for someone or something."  We read and analyzed Pablo Neruda's poem "Ode to Socks" which discusses something so ordinary as socks.  We talked about how one of the beautiful things about poetry is that it often calls our attention to things in our life we don't often think about or appreciate, like our socks.  In many ways, brachot are similar.  Before we eat something, we pause and say a bracha; we take a moment to appreciate the object and to think about where it came from and to thank Hashem.  We also read "Ode to Family Photographs" by Gary Soto which was filled with humor.  To end our discussion, today we listened to "Ode to Joy" by Beethoven.  It was music that we recognized, and we discussed that artists and people express themselves in so many ways, not just in words.  Music is poetry too.  Beethoven's piece reminded us to appreciate and relish the many moments of joy we have daily.