Green Lake Poetry and Song 2026
Welcome to The World Around Me Is a Treat to Share: Green Lake Poetry and Song, produced by Green Lake Elementary School students and Jack Straw Cultural Center. This web page and our audio recordings and book of the students’ poems are the culmination of a project with Green Lake fourth grade students during the spring of 2026.
In this project, the students worked with Jack Straw’s poet Gabriella Garcia to write their own poetry. Vocal coaches Mimi Katano and Camilla Kintana helped the students practice reading their work aloud. Musician Tito Ramsey then wrote a song inspired by the students’ poems, with special verses for each class.
The students came to Jack Straw’s studios and recorded the poems and song with Tito; our vocal coaches Mimi, Camilla, and Iveliz Martel; and engineers Daniel Guenther, Carlos Nieto, and Ayesha Ubayatilaka. Later, Tito performed with the students at a special school assembly.
Mr. Leahy’s class:
Ms. Moffitt’s class:
Green Lake Elementary Poetry & Song 2026 was produced by Green Lake Elementary School students and Jack Straw Cultural Center with the generous support of the Washington State Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, 4Culture, the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and The Creative Advantage, ArtsFund, and individual donors.
The Jack Straw artist team included poet Gabriella Garcia; vocal coaches Mimi Katano, Camilla Kintana, and Iveliz Martel; musician Tito Ramsey; audio engineers Daniel Guenther, Carlos Nieto, and Ayesha Ubayatilaka; photographer Sherwin Eng; designer Levi Fuller; and Executive Director Joan Rabinowitz. Special thanks to the fourth graders of Green Lake Elementary and Green Lake staff. We especially want to thank 4th grade teachers John Leahy and Hannah Moffitt; Principal Liz McFarland; and Administrative Secretary Amy Carroll, who helped make this project possible.
Artists
Gabriella Garcia
Gabriella Garcia is a writer from the Sonoran Desert. Her chamber opera, A Spring Like This, a collaboration with composer Nehemiah Jones, was developed and performed in 2025 with the…
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Mimi Katano
Jack Straw teaching artist Mimi Katano (she/her) is a bilingual, bicultural theatre artist in Seattle. Her directing credits include Seattle Opera (School Tour), Seattle Shakespeare Company, 5th Avenue Theatre…
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Camilla Kintana
Camilla is an actor and coach from Portland, OR, who came to Seattle to attend Cornish College of the Arts and loved the city so much she decided to stick…
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Iveliz Martel
Jack Straw teaching artist Iveliz Martel is an actor, teaching artist, and journalist from Chile. She holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington School of Drama and…
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