Dr. Tift Provides the Community a Poem a Day for Poetry Month

Every morning in the month of April, members of the Belmont Hill community begin their days by seeing an email from Dr. Tift freshly appearing in their inbox. The email’s subject line is in a template of: Poem Title by Student Name ‘XX. In order to celebrate national poetry month, Dr. Tift exposes the broader Belmont Hill community to rich and contrasting styles of poetry. Some speak of natural vistas, others paint honest portraits of themselves without glorifying for the sake of appeal. Some poems are as short as a haiku, with others using more complex forms, spanning to almost 30 lines. Although some others choose not to disclose their identity, publishing their poems simply as by an anonymous author, the majority of poets decide to display their name in the subject line. Accompanying the Poetry Fest, these ‘Poems a Day’ have become bastions of poetic thought and expression at Belmont Hill in recent years. While the poems which are selected for an all-school email are predominantly authored by Dr. Tift’s English students in the Upper School, many students have composed works worthy of the distinction.