On the 23rd of November 2021, famous poet, James Carter, visited Elmhurst School for Boys to conduct a Poetry Workshop for Years 1, 2, 4 and 5.
When I saw a mysterious man in our school hall, playing the grand piano and an electric keyboard, I was pleasantly surprised, because I was expecting a serious man to teach us poetry. After he had finished his instrumental concert, many of my fellow peers in the hall asked questions and one was:
“Mr Carter, are you by any chance related to Howard Carter?”, “I’d like to find out too,” replied James.
Mr Carter read a few of his poems out loud and we left the hall to our classroom.
Instead of our English teacher, Miss O’Sullivan, James Carter, the author of Weird, Wild & Wonderful, taught my class. We learnt what a cinquain is and had the opportunity to write one ourselves. One boy said “I really enjoyed the workshop and I learned that a cinquain is a poem which has 5 lines and syllables going 2,4,6,8,2.” Our class wrote a few riddle cinquains as an exercise.
Mr Carter also offered a signed copy of his books to boys who were interested.
At the end of the day, everybody had a great time and had learnt a lot of new things. We felt like we wanted to learn even more from him before he left our school premises.
By HI, Year 4
