Wendy White reads a poem written during a haiku poetry workshop lead by Tianyang Jiang (left), for residents of the Amica Bronte Harbour retirement home, in Oakville, Ont., on Oct. 21.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
The organizer: Tianyang Jiang and friends
The pitch: Creating Grandparents’ Diary
The cause: To bring poetry to seniors
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tianyang Jiang could see the impact lockdowns and restrictions on social activities were having on elderly people.
Tianyang, 17, came to Canada from China four years ago and his family has always had a love of poetry. “My grandparents had been very invested in poetry and that kind of seeped into me,” he said.
He decided to find a way to use poetry to help seniors cope with loneliness. “I thought that I can try to use my own own passion to bring a bit of happiness to their lives.”
Together with a group of fellow students at Oakville, Ont.’s Iroquois Ridge High School, Tianyang launched Grandparents’ Diary in 2021. Every week, Tianyang and about six other students visit a local seniors’ home and hold workshops on creative writing. They cover everything from haikus to sonnets to more complex works, and spend time reading poems. “A lot of people struggle to write at first. They struggle to find a common theme. But with time, they have gotten a lot better,” he said.
Grandparents’ Diary now has around 140 volunteers who take turns helping out and Tianyang’s friends in Germany, the United States and China have started similar programs.
In November, the group plans to release Voices of Memory: Volume 1, a book of 100 poems by seniors who participated in the workshops. Funding for the project has come from donations and grants from local service clubs.
Tianyang is in Grade 12 and he plans to attend university next year. But he’ll keep Grandparents’ Diary going and hopes to expand its reach.
Seeing so many seniors fill up notebooks with poems, stories and thoughts has been deeply moving for him. “That’s something that really makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing,” he said. “Because poetry is not something that people usually use in community service. It is usually a pretty exclusive hobby and passion. Being able to bring that to the public’s eyes is something that I really feel grateful for.”