Albany Road Hosts Poetry Circle with BJ Love

On Friday, May 2, Albany Road welcomed poet BJ Love to Deerfield Academy for a writing workshop. Mr. Love set the mood for his workshop with candles for everyone to hold and meditative music playing in the background. Scroll News Editor and Albany Road Editor-in-Chief Melody Zhao ’26 described the event as “vibey,” “ritualistic,” and “eye-opening.”

Continuing over lunch, she talked with Love about his experiences as a magazine editor at his high school and a faculty advisor for his current school’s magazine. Mr. Love took advantage of his leadership position to develop the club from nothing to “the largest one on campus,” Zhao said.

According to Zhao, Albany Road discovered Mr. Love through English Teacher Alexandra Carter. She said, “[Dr. Carter] reached out to him... He was willing to come over for a day or two and just meet students around here.” Not only was Mr. Love a good friend to Dr. Carter, but he was also a teaching mentor to her 11th grade classes on how to write and analyze metaphors. She hoped that “working with him and hearing his approach to writing reminded us [the Deerfield community] of the possibility that poetry can be silly and serious at once.” An example of his unique style can be seen in his poem “My Dog Barfed.” Zhao and Dr. Carter both expressed that this was their favorite poem from him.

Love writes every day by capturing mundane moments in his life and using them as inspiration in his work. Dr. Carter said her favorite line in the poem was “This poem / is about light, is about / all the places we can / find light if we just / try harder to find it” because Love reminds the reader to take a second and reflect on their surroundings.

However, Zhao explained how there were some scheduling conflicts with this event as the event coincided with date night and the last weekend before AP exams. Zhao said, “We decided to go ahead with it because we didn’t want to have to switch plans last minute for him.”

Zhao hopes that Love’s visit helped students connect with inspiring writers outside of Deerfield. She explains that “Deerfield is sort of a bubble sometimes,” and Mr. Love’s visit “did that sort of really well in a really creative way.”

From his experience in managing his school magazine, Love brought many of his ideas to Deerfield that united workshop participants in their passion for writing.