SWCS Teacher Has Poetry Published

SWCS Teacher Has Poetry Published

By S. Alexander Gerould 

November 26, 2007

LAKEWOOD – For Patricia Colander Micciche, and as Disney’s The Little Mermaid song goes, ‘‘life is the bubbles under the sea.’’

Ms. Colander Micciche, an art teacher at Southwestern Elementary School and an aspiring author, recently won a country-wide contest to have her poem, ‘‘Sea Song,’’ published.

Sponsored by the National Education Association, the SRA/McGraw-Hill’s What’s the Story Teacher Author Contest received over 2,500 entries. Each submission was judged by a panel of judges, which included a well-known children’s author and illustrator and board members from various reading and educational organizations.

‘‘This has been a dream of mine,’’ Ms. Colander Micciche said. ‘‘I’ve been writing books for young children and illustrating them ... for years. It was about ten years ago I entered another contest for getting your own writing published and I was a finalist. Just out of the blue I decided to enter.’’

Ms. Colander Micciche said she decided to enter poem and was surprised when she won. Entries were required to be sent in by a Jan. 31 deadline, and Ms. Colander Micciche entered on the night before the deadline. Now it will be published with the other poetry winners from each grade level in a book entitled ‘‘Imagine It!’’

‘‘I was surprised because I had actually forgotten I had entered,’’ Ms. Colander Micciche said. ‘‘I got a letter. It was very surprising that my poetry was selected to be published in the new reading series.’’ 

Calling herself more of an artist than a writer, Ms. Colander Micciche said the idea for her poem came while working on a classroom activity. 

‘‘It is a poem I wrote for my kindergartners and I use a lot of poetry ... so this was a little poem,’’ she said. ‘‘We do a lot of drawing, so one day we were working with shells.’’

A small amount of copies of the book, with Ms. Colander Micciche’s poetry, will be available at

Southwestern Elementary, she said, where a book signing will be held for school staff.

‘‘This is just my interest, writing and illustrating young children’s books,’’ Ms. Colander Micciche said.

‘‘I think it’s (the contest) important because teachers know how children learn and what children like and what excites children. I think this teacher author contest was important because they are using the writings from teachers who have a multitude of experience.’’