Students grow through creating poetry

Writing is a device that can help convey ideas that couldn’t otherwise be spoken out loud. At Sisters High School (SHS), the Poetry Club is a community that strives toward this goal of growing an inner artist and learning from those around them.

The release of the book “Musings” earlier this year showcased the students’ hard work through a collection of poetry.

“I’m so proud of everybody in the club. This book just gives them all their well-deserved recognition,” said co-founder Devan Hepburn.

Devan Hepburn is a recently graduated student from SHS who’s currently working on her degree for environmental science at University of Oregon. She, along with Marieke Jeffrey, helped found Poetry Club in 2021, and assisted in composing the book.

“I just loved poetry, and I thought Poetry Club was a great way to share stories with the community over a common medium,” says Hepburn.

Twenty-one of these SHS students played a part in constructing over 100 poems, some of them who started off never having written a poem before.

“I had never written poetry before I joined the club, but it became an important creative outlet for me, as well as a way in which I could view beauty and positivity in the world,” says Molly Greaney, a prominent contributor to the book.

Each of these students made compositions that carried their own unique meaning, ranging through diverse topics such as a woolen blanket, platonic love, and pasta adoration. These dozens of poems were divided into seven sections, Scribbles on Nostalgia, Butterflies, Redundancy, Floating, Loss, Warmth, and Earth. These sections helped tie together the seemingly random array of writing, finding shared commonalities that made the collection flow.

Though the poetry club isn’t as active today as it was last year, all students who participated left with new insight into creative writing. Many still practice the art today, and use it to better enjoy their life.

The book is not currently available for purchase, but Hepburn is working on making copies available through Sisters High School’s library.