Oklahoma High School Students Get Inspiration Through Poetry

You wouldn't think that poetry can win the hearts and minds of many high school boys (football players at that!), but here is a great story of inspiration in words:

The last year was the most trying one in Heritage Hall senior Ford Price’s life. Diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma cancer last spring, it was a constant battle for Price.

It was one he fought head-on. And it was one he didn’t have to fight alone. To go with his family, Price had support from some words and a "band of brothers.”

Price is a member of a poetry club started two years ago by Oklahoma City attorney and former Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Turpen...

"I thought it was kind of like a joke at first,” Ford Price said. "But Mike Turpen got us all really excited and pumped up about it. It’s been fantastic.”

The group started with the poem "If” by Rudyard Kipling. From there, the group also discussed and recited "Stopping by Woods on a Stormy Evening” by Robert Frost, "In the Arena” by Theodore Roosevelt and "Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The words of "If” became more than just a poem and gave strength to Price during his chemotherapy treatments.

"It helped a ton to have all that support,” Price said.

"Ryan (Randolph) and his mom made signs with lines from "If” and had them in my room. It was real inspirational.”

Price beat his battle with cancer in December, and Heritage Hall dedicated its championship football season to him.

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And here is the Rudyard Kipling poem "If" that started it all:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!