Immigrants use weekly English poetry class to learn language

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — A group of writers gathered in a room at the Great River Regional Library recently, sipping cups of Somali tea and enjoying slices of pie as they perused poetry displayed in little glass centerpieces at the front of the room.

The event celebrated the work of immigrants enrolled in a weekly English language learner class operating out of the La Cruz Community Center. Since 2020, the adult basic education class has been teaching students English and other life skills through the medium of poetry.

Walking around the tables you could read poems about Somalia, adjusting to life in the United States and the emotional journey of leaving one’s homeland and family.

As the class transitioned online during the pandemic, teacher and literary accountability specialist Kelly Travis said the class would read poems together and talk about the feelings some poetry stirred up.

Sometimes they would write poems in class, and other days they would come in and type their poems to improve their computer skills. Then the students would email the poem to their teachers, learning how to write an email and navigate an inbox.

Travis said many of the students have been in the class for five or more years, and some move on and return later. Usually students are working full-time, parenting and come with previous education, whether it be in the U.S. or in the country they emigrated from.

Pre-pandemic classes like these were very popular, but now Travis said there’s no wait list.

“All these (students), they don’t have to do it. And it shows how much they want to learn English and how much they want to assimilate, and how much they want to go to school,” she said. “It’s something that they take pride in. They have their own goals and come through it.”

The event at the library marked the first time the class had put on such a gathering. Head teacher Mary Mulbah said they wanted to engage the students with the greater St. Cloud community.

Throughout the pandemic, Travis said she and Mulbah noticed students needed more mental breaks while taking the class online, and partnered with community health worker and psychotherapist Kahin Adam to incorporate a weekly Journaling for Healing component.

“(Somalia is) known as a nation of poets,” Adam said. “For centuries Somalis are using poetry to express their feelings and the things they want to tell other community members.”

Adam said writing helps people organize their thoughts and gives meaning to traumatic experiences. Journaling can also reduce stress by releasing negative emotions.

“I remember when they were really writing and they were talking about their personal stories, it was really very difficult to listen,” he said. “But at the same time, at the end of the day, when they wrote and then we reflected and summarized the things that they wrote, you can tell the relief to say it together … and understand that, ‘Hey, I understand what you write, thank you for being vulnerable.’”

Mulbah said teaching poetry is hard at first, because you have to teach both what different poetry styles and genres are, and also how to express what you’re feeling in English.

“It’s kind of neat to see word choice, their reaction to poetry, because I think just like when you read a book, you know, everybody has a different reaction to it,” she said.

Although some students chose not to put their names on the poems displayed at the event, having the space to share that poetry was meaningful, Mulbah said.

“I wanted … to show them, ‘Look what we’ve done,’ right? Because when you write something in your notebook, oftentimes it gets crumpled up or put away and you don’t look at it again,” she said. “Our students too sometimes have low self-esteem where they think, ‘I don’t know English.’ … Maybe we gave you a vocabulary list, or maybe we gave you a structure, but you did this, you wrote it down, you practiced. And you did it over and over and over again. So it’s cool to see the product of what they’ve done and for them to see that.”