“Dear Piano,” was written by a 16-year-old Ukrainian student, Oleksii Buznitskyi, from Kyiv, Ukraine. He plays the piano and attends Matrix Academy, a virtual synchronous school in Toronto, in addition to his Ukrainian school, in order to receive dual high school diplomas.
Matrix Academy hosted poet Alice Burdick through Poetry In Voice‘s Poet in Class program. In her workshop, Oleksii wrote a poem about his experience fleeing his city under open fire, and he also wrote about the heart wrenching experience of having to say goodbye to his piano. Oleksii has been forced to leave the Ukraine for his safety, but he continues to study for both of his high school diplomas during this violent invasion of his country. [written for the poem “Dear Piano,”]