Welcome to Adams Poetry and Song 2025, produced by Adams Elementary School students and Jack Straw Cultural Center. This web page is the culmination of a project with Adams kindergarten and second grade students during the winter and spring of 2025.

First, Jack Straw musician Tekla Waterfield visited the kindergarten students at Adams and wrote and sang class songs with each of the three classes. The students sang their songs together at a special family event.

Song lyrics: Tekla and Adams kindergarteners

Later, 2nd graders in Mr. DeFelice and Ms. Orr’s classes worked with Jack Straw’s professional writer Vicky Edmonds to write their own poetry. Tekla then wrote a song inspired by each class’s poems.

In the spring, the 2nd grade students came to Jack Straw’s studios and recorded their songs with Tekla and engineers Daniel Guenther and Zeos Greene.

Tekla Waterfield and Ms. Orr’s class: This Song Will Guide You Home

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Tekla Waterfield and Mr. DeFelice’s class: To The Moon

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Adams Elementary Poetry & Song 2025 was produced by Adams Elementary School students and Jack Straw Cultural Center with the generous support of the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and The Creative Advantage, Harvest Foundation, The Washington State Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Jack Straw artist team included writer Vicky Edmonds, songwriter Tekla Waterfield, audio engineers Daniel Guenther and Zeos Greene, production intern Niyaz Mostaghim, photographer Sherwin Eng, designer Levi Fuller, and Executive Director Joan Rabinowitz. Special thanks to the kindergartners and second graders of Adams Elementary and Adams staff.

We especially want to thank 2nd grade teachers Tom DeFelice and Calliope Orr, kindergarten teachers Andrea Alvarado and Cyndi Worthington, 1st grade teacher and Arts Coordinator Rory McAuley, and principal Douglas Sohn, who helped make this project possible.

Artists