Young poets share the ‘colors of their city’ in Reading

By Karen Price

Adrian Perez-Roman has lived in Reading his whole life and heard many different opinions and thoughts about the place he calls home.

Hearing what the young people participating in recent Rain Poetry workshops had to say about their city, however, brought nothing but smiles. 

“There can be a negative outlook on Reading, but the kids highlight the positives,” he said. “They’re showing you a different side that not everybody gets to see. Everything they brought out was all the beautiful things that they see around them, and that, to me, is so cool. That’s what we’ve got to keep alive. As adults, they remind us of the small little things that matter.”

Perez-Roman, who goes by the name Apito, is the poet laureate of Berks County. He and Reading Public Library Youth Services Supervisor Caitlin Johnson partnered as teaching artists to bring PA Humanities’ popular Rain Poetry project to Reading with a series of four workshops this spring. Rain Poetry brings teaching artists such as Perez-Roman and Johnson into classrooms and afterschool programs to teach students how to express themselves through haiku. They work on their own poems around a common theme – in Reading, the theme was  “the colors of my city” – and the poems are then stenciled onto the ground in public spaces using a special spray that’s invisible when dry but appears like magic when wet – hence, Rain Poetry. 

One workshop was held with seventh graders at St. Peter’s School and another with fourth graders at Lauer’s Park Elementary. Two additional workshops were held at the library – one at the main branch and the other at the northeast branch – and were open to all students.

Johnson and Perez-Roman brought different and complementary skills to the workshops.

“I have previous experience teaching English, creative writing, and public speaking,” Johnson said. “My strengths applied to instructional scaffolding and classroom management. Adrian is a talented poet and is closely connected to the Reading community. His strengths applied to self-expression and creative experimentation. We played off each other’s strengths in the moment to meet the participants’ needs.”

PA Humanities launched Rain Poetry in Philadelphia in 2023.  The program expanded to Pittsburgh and Johnstown in 2024. For the first time ever, workshops had a bilingual element in Reading, where more than 68 percent of the population identifies as either Hispanic or Latino. All workshop materials were in Spanish and English, and as Johnson went through the instructional segment, Perez-Roman translated as needed. At Lauer’s Park, where English is a second language for most students, Johnson would provide English instruction for a few sentences, and Perez-Roman would translate.

“It was interesting to see that the majority of students submitted poems in English despite our encouragement to submit in Spanish,” Johnson said. “They seemed to appreciate the translated instruction but to take pride in submitting their poems in their second language.”

Perez, who was born in Reading to a Puerto Rican family and grew up speaking Spanish, also recited some of his own poetry in Spanish. As a young person, he said, he was never exposed to poetry written or spoken in Spanish.

“Ever. That wasn’t a thing,” he said. “As I got older, I got exposed to a little bit more, but as a kid, I never heard that. So, reciting in Spanish was a cool way to connect to them and for them to see. There were a couple kids that are still learning English, so to be able to bring that to them was an awesome experience as well.”

While young people can sometimes see poetry as a turn-off, Johnson said, the project gave them a taste of how fun and rewarding it can be while exploring their own creative potential. Even in the school workshops, the students felt free to enjoy themselves because the workshop wasn’t a graded assignment.

“One teacher even said he wished the school’s curriculum allowed more time for fun supplemental activities like this,” she said. “I was so pleased to be able to co-teach with Adrian. We made a great team, and we’ve even planned future writing programs. We plan to keep our partnership going to encourage creative expression at the library.”

The Rain Poetry project is made possible with the generous support of the Wyomissing Foundation, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, under the administration of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth Financing Authority, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.