The Northern Nevada Writing Project: Poetry Initiatives

Northern Nevada Writing Project: Our Poetry Initiatives

Each Spring, we sponsor a workshop for teachers and their students--the Piñon Poetry Festival-- to honor the memory of Bill Abrams, a poet and friend of the Northern Nevada Writing Project. Teachers attend the festival with several of their students. Writing Project Teacher Consultants challenge them to write poetry together. At the end of the festival, each participant (teacher and student) leave with a published piece of poetry.

2008's Piñon Poetry Festival will be held in Reno, Nevada, on March 27th. Click here to open and print the 2008 Festival Flyer.

Kim Polson is our Northern Nevada Writing Project's Poetry Initiative Coordinator. She took the NNWP Summer Institute in 2004, and has remained active with the NNWP ever since. She has presented at inservice courses, created on-line lessons at WritingFix, and has led sessions at workshops--our Piñon Poetry Festival among them.

In 2007, Kim took over as the Coordinator of the Piñon Poetry Festival from Jodie Black.

Our Poetry Festival:

Our Piñon Poetry Festival comes each Spring to Northern Nevada.

Thirty Northern Nevada teachers sign up to bring several students to the event with them.

Inpired by published poetry and workshops by NNWP Teacher Consultants, attending teachers and their students are challenged to think differently about poetry.

Teachers are given complimentary copies of the poetry books that our cited in the workshops.

Ideas for original poems are brainstormed between the teachers and pupils as they continue to study the published poetry together.

By evening's end, not only has everyone been well-fed and inspired, but teachers and students also publish an original poem to take back to the classroom.

Teachers and attending students are encouraged to present their favorite poetry lessons to students who were unable to attend the workshop.

Our Piñon Poetry Festival is Dedicated
to Bill Abrams' Memory
the following information about Bill was shared by Joan Taylor, former Director of the Northern Nevada Writing Project

Bill Abrams was a leader of teachers and a poet for over 20 years. From the 1970s to the late 1990s, he was committed to the students and teachers in Nevada. Bill had tremendous faith in the power of teachers working collaboratively with one another and spent much time on projects to draw teachers together to share ideas and celebrate their own and their students’ learning. Although he was an ardent fan of all teachers, he had a special love for English/language arts teachers; and he had an amazing knack for getting them involved in far-flung and engaging projects. Many of us are still working on those projects today, almost 10 years after he left us.

He was a poet and long-time member of Ash Canyon Poetry Society. He would often entertain us with his poems during Northern Nevada Writing Project Summer Institutes. He founded the Northern Nevada Piñon Poetry Festival when it became apparent that the Book-Out and the Nevada Young Writers publications were so overflowing with poetry that we perhaps needed an additional event and publication just for the poetry selections.

Bill suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for most of the years he worked with us. He joked and laughed about the annoyances of the debilitating disease and negotiated the difficulties of his disability with uncommon courage and grace. He inspired us to do our best and to see the finest in one another. We found it most fitting when noted poet, Sean Griffin, announced in 1998 that the Northern Nevada Piñon Poetry Festival would be renamed the Bill Abrams Piñon Poetry Festival.

Bill Abrams

Click here to open
and read one of Bill's poems.