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Miami, you have exceeded our expectations.

When we asked for poetry, you delivered in droves.  And we didn't even offer an open bar.

The concept behind WLRN and O, Miami Poetry Festival's month-long project, "That's So Miami," was simple enough: Write us a poem that starts or ends with "That's So Miami."

With just a few days left of the legislative session, we're working to get as many answers as possible to questions posed during our last WLRN-Miami Herald Town Hall meeting in February.

This question comes from Steve Moyer of Cooper City:

"I have a disabled child that attends public school and feel the education provided to most ESE (Exceptional Student Education) students in Broward County as well as other districts is inadequate.

WLRN-Miami Herald News has garnered an impressive array of journalism awards nationally and within the Southeast region recently. We decided to share some of this professional recognition we received from our peers with you, our readers.

Below are some of the highlights from March-April:

I will never forget that awful December day. My daughter left to school and I turned on the TV. I stumbled upon something that read “School Shooting.” All I could think was that my little princess was at her school and that this could happen anywhere. As it was getting time to pick her up, I rushed a little more and could not wait to hear her voice and see her smile. As soon as I saw her, I felt an immense sense of relief and peace. Tears kept on coming down my face.

Update 10:07 p.m. EST: The Florida Senate approved the Dolphins bill, 36-4. Now the House will get its turn to pass its own version.

Believe it or not, early voting began Monday in Miami-Dade County in a referendum that may NOT be needed by the end of the week.

The Miami Dolphins are one step closer to approval of a private-public partnership to renovate Sun Life Stadium after the Florida Senate passed a bill to legitimize a Miami-Dade referendum currently underway. 

Debate about the renovations has produced dozens maybe hundreds of hours of audio and video: Dolphins' press conferences, Miami-Dade County commission meetings, Florida Senate committee hearings, etc.

In 1998, the cultural climate in Cuba wasn't exactly conducive to artistic freedom.  While a thriving underground music scene did exist, official radio and television channels were notoriously selective, only airing artists who echoed the Communist Party line.

I was born in Nashville and spent the first four years of my life in Tuskegee, Ala.

My father, Dr. John O. Brown Sr., moved to Miami in 1955 to begin his practice in ophthalmology. To this day, I'm glad he did.

We had neighbors who were white and black. Our next-door neighbor was an older white lady who inspired my mother's love for growing orchids and my brother's passion for collecting butterflies.

I attended schools -- Jackson's Toddle Inn and Floral Heights -- that were all black. I remember those as happy years.

More than four years ago, when Congress passed the Obama stimulus, nobody in Fort Lauderdale would have imagined that a ripple effect from the legislation might become a "Wave" for Broward County commuters and businesses.

"This is the beginning," said Diana Alarcon, director of the city's transportation and mobility department, smiling as she described the new Wave streetcar project for downtown Fort Lauderdale during a recent public workshop in Oakland Park.

Two months ago, twelve dump trucks bursting with dirt and fill from a downtown Miami construction site made their way to the Everglades Outpost, an animal rescue facility in Florida City.

Barbara Tansey, the facility’s owner and overseer is slowly sifting through the remnants looking for clues. Though volunteers occasionally come to help, at some moments the elderly Tansey is entirely on her own, tirelessly sifting in hopes of revealing any artifact.

It should be mentioned that twelve truckloads is an insane amount of dirt.

Actor Colin McPhillamy is finishing up his run in Exit the King at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach.  He is also a published author, and reads an excerpt from his second book, An Actor Walks into China.  To learn more about Colin, visit www.mcphillamy.com, and to hear more excerpts, log onto www.artsradionetwork.com.

I was sitting on the verandah of a hotel overlooking Waikiki beach waiting for a lunch menu. The mighty Pacific Ocean purred like a Lamborghini in the distance. I'd spent hours walking in Chinatown from early morning looking for beautiful and unique dishes I love to use for the thematic ‘Tasting Menus’ at our restaurant. But I had little luck and a keen hunger was rising up in me.

Riding a bike is a childhood right of passage.  As we age, we move from tricycle to bike with training wheels to classic two-wheeler. But at some point we shift from bikes to the expanded mobility of owning a car.

Kathryn Moore, program manager at Broward B-Cycle, thinks people should consider going back to the basics when it comes to getting around downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Miami's quickly growing bike scene remains tightly interwoven with the city's other do-it-yourself-spirited, artsy subcultures.

Sure, there are plenty of people with fancy road bikes and Lycra suits joining Critical Mass and speeding along on group rides. But a large number of the scene's most outspoken two-wheelers are young people who push for bicycling less as an exercise form per se.

Join us Friday at noon on 91.3 FM WLRN for an hour's discussion on the week's headlines, including:

• Legislation on health care, ethics, elections and education dominate the final days of the current session in Tallahassee.

• Before Miami-Dade voters have their say on stadium improvements, will the state clear the way for the Miami Dolphins to receive tax rebates?

This weekend, you might notice that the humble coaster beneath your drink has a surprising message. Unlike the fool sitting next to you at the bar, the verses on your coaster are lucid, articulate and wise.

Paul Christiansen, a poet and graduate student at Florida International University, spearheaded the poetry coaster project. It's part of O Miami, a month-long poetry festival with the goal of exposing everyone in Miami-Dade to a poem in April.

Everyone loves to complain about political corruption.  But would you do any better?  Play our interactive game, Tallanasty, and find out if you would be a cleaner Florida politician.

I spent a recent night watching a performance of the New World Symphony being broadcast on a wall at the New World Center. As the symphony performed inside, the video played simultaneously on a soaring, 7,000-square-foot projection wall on the building’s façade. It was a dazzling night, with hundreds of people speaking multiple languages gathered on blankets and chairs, toting picnic baskets, children and pets.

We're a little over two weeks away from the scheduled Miami-Dade County referendum on proposed upgrades to the Miami Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium.

State lawmakers still need to approve a local hotel tax increase and a Dolphins subsidy that would help pay for the renovations. If that happens, the public will have a chance to officially vote on the upgrades on May 14th. 

Until then, we figured we'd give our audience a different way to express their feelings on the issue:

House Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate proposal to accept $51 billion in federal health care money on Thursday, diminishing hopes that lawmakers will reach a health care compromise before the legislative session ends next week.

After five hours of targeted questions and impassioned debate, Republicans rejected an attempt by renegade Republican Rep. Mike Fasano to accept the Senate plan to provide federally subsidized health coverage to more than 1 million Floridians.

UPDATE 4:36 p.m. - The Florida Senate passed SB 1770 today, 24-15.

Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, believes he has the votes to put his sweeping overhaul of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. up for a final vote in the Senate on Thursday.

Simmons was busy lobbying his colleagues over the proposal (SB 1770) during the floor session on Wednesday after the measure was postponed for the second time in nine days from being put up for a final Senate vote.

Up to 20,000 runners and walkers are expected to take part in Thursday evening’s annual Mercedes-Benz Corporate Run through downtown Miami — and that means street closures.

The race officially begins at 6:45 p.m. It concludes around 8 p.m. at Bayfront Park, but some closures on Biscayne Boulevard could begin as early as 2 p.m.

Motorists are encouraged to take alternate routes. Residents that live in the area will be allowed access on a “local traffic only” basis.

To create a tax break for the Miami Dolphins, Florida might eliminate a tax break for Miami’s foreign banks.

On Thursday, the state Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill allowing Florida to pay out $15 million a year in sales-tax rebates for stadium renovations, including a possible $3 million yearly subsidy for the Dolphins’ Sun Life Stadium. To pay for the new stadium dollars, the legislation would end a tax deduction reserved for international banking operations, which in Florida are clustered in the Miami area.

Around this time of year, a lot of people walk to achieve the highly coveted yellow-polka-dot-bikini body.

Lauren Book walks to help mend lives.

Book ended her fourth annual trek on Tuesday, walking 1,500 miles from Key West to Tallahassee.

She was joined on the last mile of the trip by an army of supporters in blue shirts adorned with footprints and the words “Walk In My Shoes 2013.”

It's almost a chicken-and-egg question. Do reporters and hosts with worldly or intellectual-sounding names naturally seek out public radio? Or are they drawn to this career after recognizing their fellow fancy-monikered peers on the air? Either way, among the staff at National Public Radio there are definitely a lot of fancy first-and-last-name combos like Ofeibea Quist-Arcton and Douali Xaykaothao.

Twenty-three-year-old Christopher Poore opens the door with a warm and welcoming smile. He turns and walks back into his new office. A lounge area with couches and a wooden table are off to one side in front of a wall painted bright orange and green, the colors of his alma mater. 

His business partner Ron Rick ,23, enters the room sporting a buzz cut and green polo shirt with a muscle man logo on it. The two are laid-back entrepreneurs who became friends as undergraduates at the University of Miami.

All month long, WLRN and our partners at O, Miami Poetry Festival have been collecting poems either starting or ending in "That's So Miami" and compiling them on our Tumblr page. We have seen some amazing poems, and as the month begins to wind down, we decided to put the best theme poems up for a vote.

A universal favorite among Miamians: traffic.