Franklin Learning Center has several different clubs, from Art club to Chess club, there’s something for  everyone. Poetry club is currently being run by English 3 and American History teacher Mr. Fantini. The club has been around for little over a year now, it was started after students told Mr. Fantini that FLC should have a poetry club.

Junior Janelis Duran explained that she decided to join the club as a way to express her feelings in a creative way, “I felt it would be a good way to let out repressed feeling[s]

and talk about things people don’t want to talk about in a fun and safe way.” Duran describes that the club has influenced her writing in many different ways. She ends by saying that students should join the club because, “there [is] no judgement in the group, we are open to new people and you get better as a writer even if you’re just starting out.”

As for future plans for the club, Mr.Fantini explains that “I would love for us to start participating in some public events related to youth poetry in Philadelphia. I would love for us to go to some readings and open mics, maybe work with some students at other schools. One thing I would love to see, is maybe compiling some student poetry either in the AA publication or maybe… we could partener with the newspaper or something like that. I’d love to give our students a chance to get their work in print.”.

Mr. Fantini ends by saying that he hopes that the students in the club learn to “express themselves better and learn to see the beauty in their own experience.”  Come check it out, Poetry club meets every Friday after school from 3:00-4:00 PM in room 129.

Author: Dariana Garcia

Note: A previous print and digital version of this article mistakenly named Janelis Duran as the author.