For high school student Alexa Paulino, the leafy streets of Adelaide are a far cry from the concrete jungle of the Bronx.
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"We usually get a lot of pollution everywhere so it's like a breath of fresh air seeing all the greenery," she says amid the verdant fields of the Adelaide parklands.
Alexa and her classmates were a breath of fresh air for Caroline Kennedy when she started a program in the Bronx to help kids from the disadvantaged borough to practise poetry with school students from across the world.
The US Ambassador to Australia's poetry proteges were crowned international high school poetry champions over students from South Korea and Australia at a poetry slam held during Adelaide Writer's Week on Tuesday evening.
"That was fantastic," she told reporters after the event
"You can tell the kids have gotten to know each other a little bit and I think they really put their heart and soul into their performance."
The students were all participants in a poetry exchange program Ms Kennedy started when she was Ambassador to Japan and has since exported to Korea, the Philippines and now Australia.
"I think you find these kids are just really willing to speak their truth and that helps people connect and understand each other much more quickly and directly and powerfully than sort of reading a report or talking about an issue," she said
"And I think they really respond to each other and you find that some kids have so much more in common than they realise, no matter where they live."
The students have relished the opportunity to use their new-found skills to express themselves in new ways.
"I like how I'm able to manipulate words and use them in a different way than its original intended meaning to, like, kind of match my purpose and my meaning," Alexa said.
Despite only having met a week ago, the kids have developed fast friendships with their overseas counterparts.
"They're my best friends," Annabel Lim from Bonnyrigg High School in south-west Sydney says as she puts her arms around Minjae Kim and Minjo Ko from South Korea.
"But even though we're friends now, next year we'll be getting that cup from you guys," says Annabel's classmate Tony Lam.
Australian Associated Press
