F e at u r e

The Transformative Power of Poetry When a group of Gonzaga students led a poetry workshop for fifth-graders from the inner-city, they ended up learning as much as they taught. by Joseph Ross

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Gonzaga  l    Spring 2019

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t was 7:45 in the morning on a grey day, and the rain was coming down hard. But even the wet February weather couldn’t keep my spirits down. I was on my way to meet up with eight of my students in Our Lady’s Chapel, and then board a bus to the Bishop Walker School, a tuition-free school for boys in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast, D.C. The students, all juniors and seniors, were part of Gonzaga Poets & Writers, a club I cofounded with several students in the fall of 2012, my first semester teaching at Gonzaga. Over the past six and a half years, the group has grown gradually; some years it’s bigger than gonzaga.org