For the past decade, Northeast Ohioans gathered for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremonies have celebrated a young poet alongside the winning authors. This year Logan Greer, 10, a fifth grader at Campus International School, set the tone with her poem, “City of Growing Up.” She wrote these lines in the spring of 2019 during a class exercise with teaching artist Nicole Robinson. Logan took her inspiration from “Ash” by Tracy K. Smith. Campus International is part of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
City of Growing Up
City of pleasant party people
City with gangs
City with learning
City before cruelness before being anxious
City that believes in God
City like a flower growing in the ground
City trotting around Lake Erie
City paralyzed from moving
City with depression
City examining the streets
City of a long road that I walk down
City with my family
City of angry people fighting to live
City of the taste of my grandma’s macaroni
A city of my life
Watch her recite it below and leave a comment for Logan. We’ll make sure she sees it.
