Southview freshman gets poem published in national magazine

Southview freshman Omair Hasan

Omair Hasan of Sylvania Township writes poetry as a hobby, enjoys world studies as his favorite subject at school, and plans to become a dentist.

The 14-year-old freshman at Southview High School had one of his poems published this month in Highlights, a children's magazine with a circulation of more than 2 million.

It was a poem he wrote last year for extra  credit in his English class. At the time, he was 13 and an eighth-grade student at Timberstone Junior High School.

Omair speaks in a quiet voice, listens without interrupting, and rarely breaks eye contact when he talks.

"Of my 160 students that I see a day, he is in the top couple for work ethics, intelligence, and humility," said Barbara Beverly, a Southview teacher who has the boy in her honors English class. "Plus, I would add manners and niceness. He is an all-around wonderful student. I would like to clone him."

Omair wrote his first poem about four years ago, when he was about 10 years old and a fifth grader at now-closed Central Elementary School. He has since written between 20 and 30 poems -- usually short, one page long, mostly about animals "such as cats, frogs, fish, and whales," he said.

The student said he writes about animals because "they are just easy to describe." He has no pets, he said.

"I just enjoy it," Omair said. "You come up with ideas about stories for them. I would make a small story and I would make it rhyme. I guess it is just natural."

Omair said he does not remember his first poem or what made him write it. What he does remember is that it "had nothing to do" with his English class.

"I do it as a hobby," he said. "[And] I'll keep it as a hobby."

English is not even his favorite subject, which is honors World Studies, he said. "Honors" means that this world history class is taught at a higher level, he noted.

"But I want to be a dentist," Omair said. "Because I enjoy health care."

And that is, he said, maybe because his father, Dr. Irshad Hasan, is a family doctor.

"It came about naturally to him," Dr. Hasan said of his son's choice of occupation. "I feel good about it."

Omair, his parents, Mahrukh Hasan and Dr. Hasan, and their two other sons, Haroon Hasan, 10, a fifth grade student at Central Trail Elementary, and Taha Hasan, 18, a senior at Southview, live in Sylvania Township. The family has lived here since 1997.