Concord International Elementary: Poetry and Song 2025
In the 2024-2025 school year, 2nd graders at Concord International Elementary School worked with Jack Straw writer and teaching artist Vicky Edmonds to write original poems about their feelings, emotions, and what they’re like deep inside. Jack Straw musicians Tito Ramsey and Abel Rocha wrote songs inspired by the students’ poems – Tito working with Ms. Dillon’s class, and Abel with Mr. Martinez and Ms. Perry-Menon’s classes. Abel and Tito joined the students in class along with engineers Daniel Guenther and Ayesha Ubayatilaka to teach them the songs and record them singing together.
Vicky also helped Concord 3rd and 4th graders in Ms. Trang, Mr. Preston, Ms. Martinson, and Ms. Ontiveros’s classes write poems on many topics, including family, personal feelings and emotions, and nature. We published the poems in a printed anthology: The Moon Sings to Me.
Listen: 2nd Grade Songs
Photo Gallery: 2nd Grade Poetry and Song
Concord Poetry and Song 2025 was produced by Concord International Elementary School students and Jack Straw Cultural Center with the generous support of the Washington State Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and The Creative Advantage, Harvest Foundation, ArtsFund, and individual donors.
The Jack Straw team included lead writer Vicky Edmonds, musicians Tito Ramsey and Abel Rocha, engineers Daniel Guenther and Ayesha Ubayatilaka, designer Levi Fuller, photographer Sherwin Eng, and Executive Director Joan Rabinowitz. Special thanks to the second and fourth graders of Concord International Elementary, Principal Surojit Pierce, and Concord staff. We especially want to thank teachers Amica Dillon, Salvador Martinez, Christina Perry-Menon, Iva Martinson, Rosa Ontiveros, Cheney Preston, and Anh Trang, who helped make this project possible.
Artists
Vicky Edmonds
Vicky Edmonds is a poet and a teacher who uses the written and spoken word to bring the deepest and most authentic parts of ourselves to the page into the…
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Tito Ramsey
After a six-year run in New York City as the frontman of indie dance band LEGS, composer and performer Tito Ramsey is back in Seattle writing crisp pop songs…
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Abel Rocha
Abel Rocha is a Mexico City-born folklorist, singer and multi-instrumentalist who performs music of Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Chile and Argentina. He is a foundational member of groups including…
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