A Writer Testifies About the Wonders of Working With Young Voices

on Jun 09 in Uncategorized by

InsideOut Writer-in-Residence Jamaal May. Brickheart Poetry Award winners, L to R, Mariah Patterson, Alan Robles (winner of the Poetry Bunny Award for humor, not a Brickheart Winner), Flor Hernandez, Henry Richardson, Jonas Huerta, Eduardo Gutierrez, Meliza Huerta (not pictured)

The joy of watching young voices blossom this year at Clippert Academy turned InsideOut Writer-In-Residence Jamaal May into a writer almost at a loss for words. “I can’t tell you how much this opportunity has given. It keeps giving, over and over.The new teacher I worked with this year, Mr. Ragis, got a little emotional when I went to say goodbye. He had no idea what to expect when he agreed to give up his classroom once a week, and it’s been amazing. Poetry can do that. It’s funny how I’m always shocked when I get reminders of what poetry can do, even though I’ve staked my whole life and career on this very notion.’’

The Brickheart Prize, created by Jamaal May and awarded to Clippert students

Here are a few of the Clippert Brickheart Prize winning poems awarded to Jamaal’s students:

Your Mind
Meliza Huerta

The brain in your head,
hidden by your face,
wonderful and angry—
a mixture of emotions.
What it feels you feel.
Laughter and thanks.
Horror and confusion,
flying around like comets
flashing their golden lights.
Two or two thousand.
Each one fighting
with each other like brothers.
Jealousy or envy.
Wonderful confusion.
Good and hope
unwrapped in private,
shiny as gold, but dark as dusk.
The field of emotions, the castle
that is the mind—hundreds
and hundreds of bright specters.
They laugh, it’s true,
at the stolen marbles,
they never stop, they have rage
and good. Some play
in the day, others live in night.
Some sleek, some not.
Some tell you yes, while others
say no. Which do you pick?
Good or bad or maybe
half and half. Which to choose?
The ones who laugh in anger
or those who only laugh when happy?
Your choice.

***

The Sky is Falling
Mariah Patterson

As the sky was falling,
I caught the rainbow.
It was light as a feather,
beyond my wonders.
I wonder what caused this weather.
It was red like a sour head.
It was orange like an orange.
Yellow like Jell-O.
It was all the beautiful colors: green,
the color of a tree,
as beautiful as it could be.

As the sky was falling
I caught Earth’s water.
If it were to rain harder,
my hands would overflow
like flow and dough.
As it falls slowly in my palms,
I drink it so calm.
By the next day, it’s gone.

As the sky was falling from the horizon,
swinging on strings like a chandelier,
oceans so deep they spill as they hit my hand.

***

John Lennon’s Piano
Flor Hernandez

John’s fingers running on my keys,
singing his beautiful melodies.
“Because the sky is blue,”
it makes him sad. With tears running
down his cheeks because he knows
the world can be at peace.
He leaves me every day. Now
he’ll never come back to me again.
I wonder, I wonder
when humanity ends.
I wonder, I wonder
when McCartney plays again.
I wonder, I wonder
What instrument I’ll be next.
I wonder, I wonder
If they will pick me again.

***

Trap
Jonas Huerta

Her eyes change.
She’s mixed with red, white, and blue.

She smelled the best on Earth
like chocolate and licorice.

While I attacked blueberry
sour strings, I told her to stop
smothering me and lay off,

but secretly gritted my teeth.
I sound up beat.
I lasted the whole year this time.
I really did.

My eyes widened, she smiled.
As soon as I got changed,
I wanted to punch myself.
Then I understood that
love is a trap.

***

Life Poem
Henry Richardson

Have you ever been inside of a life poem
where x-rays are fatal, brains are boggled?
Where people are like tin-men, rusted, frozen
in a coma? Use electricity to jolt them up.
A Stonehenge falling could not wake him up.
It’s over, it’s finished. He’s done.
Going to the dentist sucks.

***

I Wonder
Eduardo Gutierrez

I wonder why people pick animals for pets
and turn them into Barbie Dolls.
I wonder if people turn into aliens
in the middle of the night.
I wonder if nonliving things die
just for wondering.
I wonder if families get mad, argue
to see who is the oldest
and for being the mom or dad.
I wonder if people are sick
of being people and having to suffer.
I wonder if people wonder
about the things they won’t be able to do,
be happy with themselves. What about you?
What do you wonder?

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