Photos: Student poetry reading at Providence elementary school celebrates community writing program offered through Brown course

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - "The Gummy Bear Heist." "An Ode to My Couch." "The Cat Alone." Those are just a few of the original poems that fifth graders from Vartan Gregorian Elementary School in Providence authored during a months-long writing residency program offered by Brown University Professor of Literary Arts and poet Eleni Sikelianos and students from Brown.

Most Tuesday afternoons throughout the Spring 2026 semester, Sikelianos - and 10 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in her Writers-in-the Community Training and Residencies course - stepped off campus and into the elementary school's auditorium to lead a poetry reading and writing workshop for about 50 fifth graders.

The poems written by the young students were compiled into an anthology titled "Wings to Make Hurricanes (Miniature Literature)," which the children presented during an event in May to celebrate the culmination of the residency.

"Poetry provides an instant gateway to the freedom and liberation of the imagination in language, which may seem like a simple thing, but is in fact revolutionary," said Sikelianos, who has published several books, including "Memory Rehearsal," which was released last month.

Brown's partnership with Vartan Gregorian Elementary School (which is named in recognition of Brown's late president emeritus) began in the early 1990s when student-athletes at the University started visiting kids throughout the year to serve as tutors, mentors and role models, which has continued alongside other collaborative efforts. In Fall 2022, an innovative hands-on learning space opened at the elementary school, built with financial support and partnership from Brown. Faculty, staff and students from the University also contribute curriculum and events for the K-5 school, including neuroscience lessons during Brain Week Rhode Island and hands-on learning activities focused on sustainability for Earth Day.

Sikelianos began offering the collaborative poetry residency course through the Department of Literary Arts shortly after coming to Brown in 2018. It is modeled on the tenets of two nonprofits, California Poets in the Schools and Teachers and Writers Collaborative, "which hold that children are abundantly capable of reading, responding to and getting excited about great literature," she said.

This semester, she and her students from Brown guided the fifth graders as they read and discussed works by the likes of William Carlos Williams, Federico Garcia Lorca and Emily Dickinson, among others, and considered how the works might inspire their own imaginations.

"I'm committed to teaching and eliciting great poetry - not dumbed-down poetry that talks down to kids," said Sikelianos, who has also taught poetry in schools, shelters and prisons in California, New York and Colorado. "Our young elementary students become astoundingly astute close readers."

Sikelianos said the Brown students developed close connections with the kids and learned about many aspects of teaching creative writing in community settings. Typically offered every other year, the course is supported by funding from Brown's Swearer Center.