“Hello and Goodbye”

By Lydia Stapleton

Goodbye being the smallest cousin.

Hello having a baby cousin

Goodbye having 19 cousins

Hello having 20 cousins

Goodbye to torchering  brothers

Hello being nice to a baby

Goodbye being lame

Hello being goofy

That was just one of the many poems read last week during a poetry jam by the second-grade students of Tricia Hall’s class at Glacier gateway Elementary School.

The students learned a variety of the poetry types over the course of writing their poems, like Haiku and Cinquain and then held a jam last Friday where they read their verses to fellow classmates from other second grade classes.

They did it in front of a cool canvas painted by tattoo artist Brian Hutchins. Hutchins, who owns Arcanum Tattoo Society on Nucleus Avenue, wanted to give back to the school and so Hall suggested the mural. Ace and Hanson’s hardware donated the paint and Hutchins went to work with second-grader Ryder Lingle painting the mural, which celebrates poetry and includes a host of recognizable characters from TV and film, including the Stitch character from the Disney film, “Lilo and Stitch” and video game character Mario, just to name a few.

“We wanted to make it nostalgic for the parents,” Hutchins said last week.

It definitely made a fun backdrop for the poetry readings, like this one from Elliot Bennett.

Goodbye pucks and hockey

Hello balls and soccer

Goodbye cold slippery ice

Hello to warm grass

Goodbye to heavy cloths 

Goodbye riscking bracking fore bone

Hello to not riscking bracking a bone