Belmont Hill Welcomes Renowned Poet Regie Gibson

By Brady Paquette ’25 Panel Staff

The Belmont Hill community welcomed to campus, poet, songwriter, and author, Regie Gibson. Throughout his career, Mr. Gibson performed, taught, and lectured at schools and universities. His goal is to help teach and mentor young men. He was once a young man trying to find his way, and needed someone to help guide him. He mentions that he “sees it as a responsibility.” When Regie was a little kid, he realized the importance of having someone to look up to. He originally fell in love with poetry because of his passion for words. Comparing two things that are not supposed to make sense and combining them into one meaning helped Mr. Gibson with writing and understanding literature in school. For instance, a “train” and a “thought” would not normally be thought of as two individual things that should go together. However, once merged into a phrase, it makes perfect sense.

Regie’s great-grandfather was illiterate, forcing him to tell Regie stories rather than read them himself. When he was young- er, his love for Shakespeare and language inspired him to take a more creative path in writing and music composition. Some of the people Regie also looked up to were Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda because of their larger, broader voices. They both influenced society in their own way as South American and American Democratic poets.

Mr. Gibson performed poems and highlighted the importance of connecting with an audience throughout the week. Each day, Mr. Gibson and Dr. Tift worked together to put on gatherings where students could perform original poems and attend writing workshops where the students learned how to craft and rehearse a poem of their own. At the beginning of the week, every boy in the school was assigned to memorize and rehearse a poem in front of their English class. The boys in the class would then vote for one boy to send to the finals, where they would present their poem in front of the whole school in the Hamilton Chapel. This annual Belmont Hill tradition has been carried on since the origins of school history. The boys finished their poetry week by gathering in the chapel to hear the finalists perform and listen to a not only powerful, but moving poem by Mr. Gibson.

When asking Mr. Gibson about the finalists’ performances, he mentioned that only two boys, the youngest of the group, chose poems by females. “Their youth allowed them to open up more than some of the older boys,” Regie said. He talked about the importance and acceptance of being different and how being emotional in such situations is okay. Regie said that he does not talk about him much, but Bill Clinton had one quote that stuck with him; “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

“Memorization is key to a powerful performance. We truly don’t do it enough!”

These words highlighted Mr. Gibson’s opinion on how Belmont Hill has incorporated poetry into everyday life. He mentioned that we must “wrestle with the fact that poetry becomes a part of us.” Through his final days, a common theme he emphasized was the simplicity of poetry. He highlighted that human beings are complex and that we must recognize that in order to grow. Leaps of progress will not happen immediately. Slowing things down and not judging people too quickly are two ways in which Regie believes that we can fully embrace the meaning of art and poetry.

It was clear that Mr. Gibson impacted the boys and helped to shape their interest in poetry and public speaking in a significant way. Dr. Tift is “grateful to Regie for bringing a starburst of wonderful ideas, perspectives, wisdom, and—of course—poetry to our community during his week in residence. And I am grateful to the students for embracing their time with him.” She also thanked the “Rashes family for their support of the Dr. Jeffrey A. Fast Visiting Authors and Writers Fund that made Regie’s visit possible. It allows Belmont Hill to bring writers to campus each year to share their art.” We can only hope that future visiting authors are as witty, entertaining, and impactful as Mr. Gibson!

The community sincerely thanks Mr. Gibson for helping each and every one of us understand what it means to be a true poet and for being so generous with his expertise in such an amazing art form! ☐

April Poetry Month Brings The Poem of the Day

By Luke Glueserian ’24 Panel Staff

Every morning in the month of April, members of the Belmont Hill community begin their days by seeing an email from Dr. Tift freshly appearing in their inbox. The email’s subject line is in a template of: Poem Title by Student Name ‘XX’. In order to celebrate national poetry month, Dr. Tift exposes the broader Belmont Hill community to rich and contrasting styles of poetry. Some speak of natural vistas, others paint honest portraits of themselves without glorifying for the sake of appeal. Some poems are as short as a haiku, while others use more complex forms and span to almost 30 lines. Although some authors choose not to disclose their identity, publishing their poems simply as by an anonymous author, the majority of poets decide to display their name in the subject line. Accompanying the Poetry Fest, these ‘Poems a Day’ have become bastions of poetic thought and expression at Belmont Hill in recent years. While the poems which are selected for an all-school email are pre-

People call me names and laugh behind my back

They don't seem to care if I hear I move on as if I don't care

They say my stride is like an earthquake

They ask if I can see my own two feet

I put my head down and pace

Surrounded by skinny boys and girls I guess I'm just the bigger person