I just came across this blog post I wrote a while back on another site. It's about a summer program in performance poetry I worked on a few years ago, and its impact on the 20 high school students we had the privilege to work with. I had forgotten that I wrote it, and was so glad to stumble across this again, as it captures specific details that I might have forgotten otherwise.
More than that, it captures some details about the students' response to me, and what a rare experience it is to hear so much about how your students are impacted by an art experience. It's a moment of how I was feeling in December of 2008 as an artist in education.
One note: the summer program with these kids that I mention took place at a central site during the summer, and consisted of students from various parts of the city.
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December 5, 2008
Reasons to Believe
- I posted some photos online from the high school poetry workshop I taught last summer, which continues to burn in my mind. I’m glad that I waited to post the photos until the cascade of other photos from the students were through, until they were well into their semesters at school, and maybe had forgotten some of the smaller moments. When I did this, T. posted a comment, to the effect of “I’m literally in tears,” how much he missed everybody, and how “professional” he thought the class was compared some other folks he’s working with now. Never expected that. So amazed to know that his memory of how the group dynamic turned out is so rosy. It really did turn out pretty great at the end–the kids got past their differences and learned to work in spite of them. But woooooooo…we had our moments.
- A day or two later, A. texted me to thank us for teaching the class, and to let me know that he had won a contest at some youth arts conference in Wisconsin with one of the poems that he’d written in our program over the summer.
- Then T. sent me a message: I still think about u. U r the sun exploding in my soul. I ment to thank u b cuz I’m realizing how much of not only a better poet but person u molded me to b. Keep ur head up and wash your hair. (He’s referencing a line from “All She Wrote” by Harryette Mullen–”Wash your wet hair?”, a poem we read over the summer).
- E. and I (as well as A. and I) have been braiding poetry back and forth, at their request, since the workshop ended. E. just asked if I would record some of the poems with him for his new album. I also found out that he started poetry braids with A., and another classmate of his.
- I saw E. perform the other night, and he said, “Thanks for keeping me writing!” I–kind of flabbergasted–said, “No, thanks for keeping me writing!” He said that he misses poetry and hasn’t been getting enough.
It just never occurred to me what a lasting effect this workshop would have on the kids, kind of a ripple effect of new collaborations, new work, and relationships that are ongoing. I’m thankful that I get a little snapshot from them every once in a while of what’s going on (who’s been accepted to what college, who’s working on a student newspaper, who’s performing…). It isn’t often that, as a teacher, I get to see what my kids are like in the time after I’ve worked with them, and to even imagine whether the work has had any impact on them or not. I don’t flatter myself that I’ve played a vital part–the students I worked with last summer are really talented, full of initiative, and by and large extremely hard-working–they’ll find opportunities regardless. But just hearing from them and getting the thanks, knowing that they’re doing well, encourages me in the middle of what has been a long and challenging fall…the kids I have right now are fabulous, but there are so many of them. The poems are amazing, but I only have 40 minutes a pop, and I see about 180+ kids at each of the two schools where I’m a poet-in-residence.
I’m just glad to know it matters.
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