Hannah Herzog was our Lin-Wood student many years ago, and she recently passed away.  She was a quiet young woman, whose story I tell every year when we kick off Poetry Out Loud.  Her class participated early on in our school’s tradition of Poetry Out Loud, our first or second year perhaps roughly 15 years ago.  Hannah knew her poem perfectly, and I remember learning it alongside her because she practiced so frequently, knowing that if she said those eight lines enough they would become part of her automatic memory.  

Now, Hannah was the kind of kid who worked super hard in school as different elements of learning did not come easily for her; yet, she never avoided hard tasks.  She just knew intuitively that she would be better off in the long run if she did the “hard stuff” first.  This carried through to her jobs she held in the years after high school as well.  I always admired her steadfast reliability.  She was also one of the kindest kids, always with a sweet smile to share, to pass through our hallways, which is why this story I tell every year has impacted generations of students.  

And if you were part of Hannah’s English class and remember this event, please reach out as I was so fixated on Hannah that I’ve forgotten the specific boys who made this memory possible.  But as I looked through your yearbook trying to jog my memory, what was a truly delightful realization is that it could have been any of them- honestly.  It was a long time ago, but in my memory, Hannah was the only girl in an English class full of boys.  Can you even imagine? But there we were– the day had arrived when students would be sharing their poems aloud in class.  Hannah did not want to do her poem in front of everyone, yet everyone knew she had it memorized weeks ago.  

She stood up there in front of the class and a hushed, respectful quiet fell across the otherwise chatty group of boys waiting for Hannah to begin.  And then I noticed the one tear which slid down Hannah’s cheek, and I thought, “Oh crap, please don’t let this be the memory that traumatizes this sweet girl.  She knows every word frontwards and back.”  I prompted her with the first line, thinking that might be enough to kickstart her recovery.  But it wasn’t.  And she stood there quietly, unmoving, and just as I stood up in the back to make my way towards the front as I worried she might leave the room panicked, a moment happened that makes me cry to this day.  A moment of moral courage that reminds teachers of why we ask kids to do hard things in the classroom.  

Suddenly, a young man jumped from his seat, approached Hannah, and stood next to her facing the classroom.  “You’ve got this Hannah, we know you do.”  We know you do echoes in my memory.  Hannah smiled, grateful to him.  Then another boy popped up, and another, and another, until the entire class of boys– maybe there were 10 or 12- stood next to her facing me at a table in the back.  Another boy said, “OK, Hannah, we took away your whole audience, so let’s hear that poem.” 

And without pause, she shared “Let it be Forgotten” by Sara Teasdale without one single mistake, her voice soft and powerful just like it needed to be for the tone of this poem.  The irony of this poem being about forgetting things is never lost on me as Hannah Herzog and the impact she left on me as her teacher– and likely on her friends and classmates and family over the years– will never be forgotten.   And this wasn’t the end of Hannah’s story with Poetry Out Loud.  She actually won for her class and felt so confident ultimately that she wanted to share her poem in the gym in front of the entire school later in the week.  I was nervous for her about the wave of panic that could potentially make for an awkward silence in front of the student body.  I could better control the students in my classroom, but we never know how that might be received in a bigger crowd.  And I’m not sure if this was prearranged among the boys and Hannah, but as soon as she got up to do her poem in the gym, the whole class just walked up with her in front of the microphone.  The audience cheered for Hannah both before she presented her poem and after.  Her smile could not have been any bigger.  

The magic of a small school.  The magic of one moment of kindness.  The magic of one young lady’s fear evolving into courage.  This memory will never be forgotten, and neither will you.  Thank you, Hannah; you will be missed.  

Let It Be Forgotten

By Sara Teasdale

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,

Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten

Long and long ago,

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall

In a long forgotten snow.