SOUTH OTSELIC – For the past five weeks, seniors at Otselic Valley High School have been working with Cazenovia poet Rachel Guido deVries, and in addition to learning about the art of poetry, the students have also been learning about life and the memories they have created.

As seniors going in to the second half of the school year, the 10 students in Michael Foor-Pessin’s class have spent a lot of time contemplating the end of their high school career and everything that it brings.

For weeks, the students have been working to write poems about loss, graduation and the legacy they will be leaving behind.

“It showed us the closeness of our past,” one student said. “It’s going to be hard to leave everybody.”