In the door!

Dear Readers,

Our patience, but more realistically, our annoying persistence has proven to be worthwhile! Last Wednesday at 3:30pm, after a string of phone calls and nearly desperate voicemails, I received the official green light go ahead from CPS. Frustratingly, it turns out they received my background results (I passed…) almost two weeks ago but it took my pestering for the information to get to the school.

With that being said, even after the first day leading Hands on Stanzas workshops at Manley High School, I can already tell all the headaches and hand-wringing was worth it. I’m working students who are recovering credits from the school-year. My first class of five students is recovering a U.S. History credit and the second class of four is working to recover an English credit. School only goes from 8:30-11:30 am and a number of the students regularly attend school elsewhere.

To start we rearranged our desks into a circle and introduced ourselves. Then we played a game that the French Surrealists invented around 1915  called “Exquisite Corpse” Essentially, the game creates a collaborative poem that is a surprise until the end. I wrote the first line on five papers and gave each student one poem to continue. After they wrote the second line they folded the paper down to cover my first line. Then when the paper got to the third person they could only read the second line. They had no idea what was written before them. I told the students to feel free to be silly and write down whatever came to mind. The Surrealists believed in the creative potential of the unconscious mind, like when we dream, and found meaning or enjoyment in the irrational juxtaposition of unlike images. I encouraged them to be irrational!

Once the paper was folded into a little accordion each student opened one. They read them to themselves, laughing, and saying “what!?!,” and then they read it out loud to the group.

Here is an example from Mr. Peterson’s history class that was written by Stephanie, Kwantina, Teika, Brandon, Dearl, and me:

The trees honked at each other
because the branches was in their way blocking the
sidewalk,
the lady couldn’t walk on the sidewalk
the sidewalk was too damaged
they jumped over the cars
because that was the only way around
like a clock ticks upside down
the time starts to go backwards
the clock begins to tick
time is moving slow
as he sits back and grow old
as his days past by
like the big fluffy clouds
I ate the cupcakes with ease as the icing fill my
mouth

Here is another example from Ms. O’Neal’s class, written by myself, John, Tiese, Lynne S. and Montrell:

Blooms of money flowers sprung up
dollar signs falling slowly from the sky
It was raining dead rich men
Money is the root of evil or money is you
money can be used for good it depends on what you do
Money can buy me that but not a sidewalk or a bus
I have lots of benjamins in my pants
so I began to dance
Filled with joy; I couldn’t be happier
Money can buy love…wedding
money won’t make you happy–divorce
put money in your name
I’m a rapper with no bars
so I play at the park to find some
what are you playing for
keeps

I love that they both do and absolutely do not make sense. Somehow it works—that’s the magic of poetry. But writing them as a group helped facilitate a sense of collaboration and togetherness. After this we wrote I Wish poems, modeled after a list, the students wrote ten of their own wishes. I encouraged them to combine the realistic wishes with the extraordinary.

Here is a wonderful example by Tekia M.:

I wish food was always free
I wish I could take me ball everywhere with me
and my rim
I wish a mermaid could play in my hair
I wish I had a live grizzly bear
I wish I had hamburgers of all different flavors
I wish I was best friends with the mayor
I wish I had 12 cars 3 houses and a baby panda
I wish I had life like on Grand Theft Auto
I wish I was best friends with the maker of balenciagas
I wish my house was in the trees
I wish I had 30 animals living with me
I wish I had a snake so he could see what I couldn’t see

and another great example from John C.

I wish I controlled the money
I wish I could never get sick
I wish Beyonce was my wife
I wish animals could show their feelings
I wish I could live forever
I wish I can eat all the snacks and still be healthy
I wish an alien was my cousin
I wish god can hurry up and get us
I wish school was 10 minutes long
I wish I was famous
I wish I was rich
I wish for unlimited wishes
I with I have fairy godparents

Lastly, we took a look at a poem published in Poetry magazine in December 2014 by Danez Smith called “Dinosaurs in the Hood.” I highly recommend you check it out, here is a link:http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/249154 We discussed the way this is like an extended “I Wish” poem and also combines the real and the imaginary.

Needless to say, I’m so happy to be writing poems with young Chicagoans. They’ve already astounded me with their poetry. I’ll be back to see them again on Thursday and Friday this week.