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<![CDATA[After searching through the Web for new forms of poetry,
involving youth, I discovered the youth speaks website, the
Poetic License site, and was loaned the movie by another Slam
Poet. Since I'm a librarian I recommended it to several
teachers and showed it in the library during lunch and after
school. Many more students asked to borrow the movie and this
past school year has been a rapid growth of spoken word on
our campus.
The students identified with the poets and began to write
more globally oriented poems. A core group were very hungry
and began attending some of the open mics (microphones) and
spoken word events in the south bay area.
We've just finished a month long poetry festival, on campus,
where we brought in poets from near and far to perform in
assembly type settings (and outdoors at lunch time) for, at
times, more than 300 students. Math, science, modern
language, industrial arts, soc. studies,and english teachers
took class time to bring their students to these events. Some
of the featured poets began inviting students from the
audience to perform on the spot and they responded
incredibly. All together we had 10 poets vist our school
during April.
The festival involved not only readings and presentations but
writing workshops and a student mic in the lunch quad, where
12 of our own poets performed their work for the school in an
outdoor setting, complete with stage and microphones. The
grand finale was two 60 minute performances by four of the
'Youth Speaks" poets and their director. They played to two
SRO crowds in our 350 seat auditorium.
I'm anxious to get the Poetic License curriculum as this
year's progress was all by the seat of our pants and by the
advice of some incredibly helpful local poets. We've formed a
nucleus for a poetry/slam club and are going to put at least
one more student stage event together before the end of the
year. There are many closet writers coming out and they gain
more confidence the more that they see their peers on stage.
Get this movie and show it to your students. Then give them
all the paper they need and a place to speak their truth.
If you would like to see pictures of the festival and some of
our student poets, just drop me an email. I was a football
coach for 18 years and more recently a librarian. I'm not a
poet but now I hear students refer to me, as I walk by, as
the "Poetry Guy". Pretty cool.
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