N. Bellmore fifth-grader among Top 10 poets in the nation

When Dinkelmeyer Elementary School fifth-grader Andrew McInnis received a letter at home saying that he had been named one of the Top 10 young poets in the country, he didn’t think much of it. He didn’t even mention it to his Alpha teacher, Tillie McNamara. But a few weeks later McNamara made the announcement to the entire Alpha class and made sure the students realized the importance of the award.

McInnis was one of 65 students in North Bellmore’s Alpha program who will be published in “A Collection of Poets,” an anthology of poetry by students in grades four to six from across the country. McNamara’s Alpha students have competed in the contest, which is sponsored by Creative Communication, for 10 years, and this is the first time she’s had such a high percentage of her students receive recognition — McInnis is only the third North Bellmore student to place in the Top 10.

McInnis’s poem, “Nature,” shows the literary and creative capability of a student far beyond his age, McNamara said. Even though the free-verse poem is written with skill and maturity, his ability to do so was not completely surprising, McNamara said. The fifth-grader’s classroom teacher, Kathleen Kee, agreed, adding that McInnis entered the fifth grade as a strong writer.

McNamara gave her Alpha students photos as a “launching point” to begin developing their poems for the contest. McInnis immediately grabbed four photos of different nature scenes. McInnis said he is rarely drawn to writing poetry about people and prefers to write about nature. The poetry is descriptive, a poetic device that he learned in his fifth-grade class from Kee.

Kee introduced poetry to her students in November and focused on Robert Frost, emphasizing the descriptive language in his poems. McNamara said it was evident that McInnis was already well-versed in descriptive poetry when the Alpha class took on the poetry competition.