Poet-Tree Challenge grows student creativity

Join in the library-sponsored Unjudged Art and Science Poet-Tree Challenge

Text over an artistic rendering of a tree reads "Unjudged Art & Science Poet-Tree Challenge"

The contest challenges students to include 3-4 of the challenge words in a poem, write it on their poet-tree leaf and hang it on the tree.

Plums, earth, energy and symbiosis may not have much in common; but they are the words IU students have been posed to compose poems with by the IU Libraries.  

The new Unjudged Art and Science Poet-Tree Challenge, open to all students, is designed to give students the chance to have fun entwining these “sciencey” words into something artful, said Jennifer Simms, head of the Sciences Library, a branch library in the Chemistry Building. Students who enter can also win prizes if their names are randomly drawn.  

But the activity has a deeper purpose, too.  

“The sciences and the arts are integrally linked. We are fueled to create when we have immersive experiences in both realms. They feed off each other."

Jennifer Simms, Sciences Librarian

“A lot of great scientists are also creative people. Creative people are also inventors,” said Simms, who helped design the challenge. 

To enter, students need to write a short poem using the four words in any tense or form. If they want to be eligible for prizes, students need to submit a photo of their original poems online. Each poem can only be submitted once, but students can submit more than one poem.

The large white poet-tree with poem leaf submission sits in the Sciences Library lobby

The Poet-Tree in the Sciences Library.

Drawings are also being conducted weekly at the Friday Finish in the Wells Library this February. The weekly winner will receive a LEGO Bonsai Tree kit from the Botanical Collection.  Lindsey Schaffer, Event and Hospitality Coordinator, has been instrumental in not only the Friday Finish elements of the challenge, but also in finding the 3-dimensional trees used to display the poems at both locations.  
The Sciences Library is conducting separate random drawings for eight weeks through April for the Bonsai Tree kits or Magnetic Poetry Kits. The library chose to give away the word magnet kits relating to squirrels, nature, tacos, and sasquatches.  

There are two seven-foot cardboard “poet-trees,” one in the Sciences Library, located on the ground floor of the Chemistry Building, and one in the Wells Library lobby only at the Friday Finish. Students can write a poem on a paper leaf and hang it on one of the trees for fun, anonymously. To enter the drawings, they need to photograph the leaf and use the link at the QR code to upload the photo or attach a file with the poem.  

“We didn’t want students to feel compelled to put their names on the leaves,” explained Simms. “Poetry can be scary or intimidating.”

The Poet-Tree in Wells Library at the Friday Finish, covered in student poetry leaves

The Poet-Tree at the Friday Finish.

However students want to participate, Simms said she hopes this activity will help them realize the more they immerse themselves in both the arts and sciences, the more fulfilled and successful they can be.  This activity is one kind of stress reliever and creative escape that many libraries offer, she added.  

“You want to exercise a lot of different parts of your brain,” Simms said. “I think people are going to like this.” 

Text reads "Unjudged Art & Science Poet-Tree Challenge"

The Unjudged Art & Science Poet-Tree Challenge prompt encouraging students to get "sciencey" and creative at the same time.

Herman B Wells holding a giant pencil. Text reads "The Friday Finish."
Stop by the Friday Finish to leaf your mark!

The Poet-Tree will be at the Friday Finish on February 14th and February 21st from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

An exterior shot of Sciences Library
Branch out at the Sciences Library!

Stop by the Poet-Tree at the Sciences Library from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday or 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays.

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