Bucks County Poets Make Free Writing Handbook For Local Teachers

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Four former Bucks County laureates have teamed up to publish a poetry handbook for local teachers to use in the classroom.

Mary Jo LoBello Jerome, Katherine Hahn Falk, Luray Gross, and Laren McClung, along with Bucks County Community College Professor Ethel Rackin, have published "Fire Up the Poems: Poetry Prompts for Teachers by Bucks County Poets Laureate."

Funded by the Bucks County Community College Foundation, the handbook provides poetry lessons to local arts educators in the county at no cost. The prompts look to increase students' critical thinking skills and greater understanding of writing.

Jerome said she “knew a book like this would be useful in the classroom. I wanted students to connect with poetry in the real world, to experience poetry as a method of individual expression and as a vehicle to inspire change. You don’t have to be Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson to write poetry."

The project also aims to raise awareness of Bucks County Community College’s two poetry programs: the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program, the longest running program of its kind in the state of Pennsylvania, in place since 1977, and the High School Poet of the Year Competition.

The Bucks County Poets Laureate hopes to turn the handbook into a larger project through online PDFs and audio versions of the prompts online.

For more information about the handbook, Bucks County Poet Laureate Program, or the High School Poet of the Year competition, visit bucks.edu/poets or contact Ethel Rackin at
ethel.rackin@bucks.edu.

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