Sandra says

“I think it’s important for writers to teach — not so that we sow more and harvest more writers, but for the real reason we write — we write to save lives, our own and the lives of others. I think we should be of service, teaching or doing something in the community to put our writing to use.”

- Sandra Cisneros, excerpt from The Writer’s Chronicle, Summer 2006.
Cisneros is the author of The House on Mango Street, and numerous other novels and poetry collections.

Write On!

Pens are poised and journal pages are fresh. Let the writing groups begin!

It’s the season of alarm clocks and cafeteria surprises. Lockers and gossip and a few classes in between. I’m revved up for a year of student writing, and happy to expand activities to the young set, students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade.

The Waldport Community Learning Center, Seashore Family Literacy and I have teamed up to offer three great writing groups and I’m looking for eager kids and adult volunteers. No writing experience necessary. Just a love of reading, writing, and the magic that happens when you put pen to page.

Here’s the lineup:

Happy Hour — for Young Readers & Writers
(3rd, 4th, 5th grade)
Meets Wednesdays, 4:30 to 5:30pm
Literacy gets fun in this hour of structured reading & writing games, one-on-one reading, library visits, and storybook tales. This group is offered through the 21st Century After-School Program. Parents may register students when completing school registration forms, or by calling Melaia Kilduff, Center coordinator, 563-3476.

The Writing Club – for middle school students
(6th, 7th, 8th grade)
A fun and engaging way for students to explore creative writing through writing games, walking field trips, word-art crafts, poetry and prose.
Meets Thursdays, 4 to 5:30pm
This group is offered through the 21st Century After-School Program. Parents may register students when completing school registration forms, or by calling Melaia Kilduff, Center coordinator, 563-3476.

Young Writers Group – for high school students
(9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade)
Students generate fresh poetry and prose during this free, weekly dose of revved-up writing practice. In this supportive setting, young writers share their work with the group, and enjoy feedback from adult mentors.
Meets Thursdays, 6 to 8pm (includes dinner)
This group is offered by Seashore Family Literacy. Students may register by calling Drew Myron, instructor, 547-3757. Class is limited to 12 students.

Collaboration. Combination. Crossover.

Call it what you want. I just know I like it. It’s fresh and invigorating and blooming all over: the cross-pollination of art and life. Art and politics. Art and poetry. Art in the everyday.

I love it.

We don’t live vacuum-sealed lives, with clear divisions between topics and concerns, passions and hopes. Why should art? Or poetry? Or politics? I say, take it out of the courthouses, the museums, the academic books. Blast poetry across busses and airplanes, write it across sidewalks and on grocery store floors. Wrap buildings in color, landscapes in cloth (e.g. Christo). Blend words and art and ideas together. Explore the push and pull of emotion and movement, reason and whimsy. Let it get messy and interesting and fun.

That’s just what a group of Denver artists have done with Dems Do Denver. To celebrate the Democratic National Convention in Denver (August 25 – 28, 2008), a handful of notable Denver artists have created donkey-themed, limited edition political buttons. The collectibles are just $4, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the Denver National Convention Host Committee. (My faves are by Tracy Weil and Hadley Hooper.)

These aren’t the staid buttons of the past. It's politics retooled to reflect today’s willingness to try new things. With these buttons, and in many artful collaborations, there is a suggestion of hope, a willingness to see things in a new light.

Though really quite simple, these crossovers have the power to make real and tangible change. Art invigorates the soul, strengthens the mind and helps generate other art forms. Ideas are born and an audience grows. A momentum feeds movement and, ultimately — hopefully — a greater good.

And all that for just four bucks.

In the everyday

Poetry lives in the everyday, I tell my young students. In what you feel, what you see, and what you say. They want to be poetic, and so they’ll use words like regret and sorrow. They’ll force rhymes and take a brooding tone. At just 10 to 13 years old, they believe — like many adults — that poetry is a string of forlorn verse.

But I take the Naomi Shihab Nye perspective. Nye, an Arab-American poet living in Texas, has been called “a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart” (by William Stafford, another great poet and an Oregon icon).

Nye believes poetry resides in the little things, the big things, and in the ordinary spaces inbetween. In Valentine for Ernest Mann, she writes:

. . . So I'll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them . . .

And so, with Nye as an example, my young charges and I look for poetry in shadows and shoes. We take walks to experience ordinary life with fresh eyes. We gather words and sounds and listen for poetry in traffic and horns, in shouts and silence.

A few weeks ago, I shared Nye’s collection, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls with my 10 year-old niece. Kimberly is a bright and curious girl who loves nature and science. Within 10 minutes of cracking the book, she was inspired to pen her own poem. Now, that’s the poetry spirit!

The sun is high
The moon is low
The day is bright
And the night is cold
The stars are my nightlights
so I don’t get scared
My father said, don’t burn
out the lights
so that is why I
use the sky.

I love this piece. It’s fresh and unaffected. It doesn’t try too hard. Kimberly saw poetry in light and stitched words from the sky — and we can too. When we pay attention and write from everyday experience, we're all poets, at any age.

Simple beauty, well told

Oh, My Love

Nizar Qabbani

Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes