Revealing Thoughts and Ideas

Alternative high schools provided a safety net for adolescents tripping on the high wires of institutional education. Staten Island’s largest alternative high school, Concord, was notably represented in Streams 4. The publication opened with Candice’s “What Freedom of Speech Means to Me,”

Freedom of speech is
really the freedom of expression,
to completely be
what you want to be.

In 1990, there were fourteen interns courtesy of City as School. A student who came to alternative schools after attending Hunter College High School, used her internship with Waterways to design and print her own chapbook, which she titled, “May I See Your Poetic License, Please?” Her “Poem of Exquisite Beauty” began:

A thought:
a feeling
escapes
in a blast of pure
golden light.


Waterways offered the experience of publishing their expressive writing to all students. We created a student centered literature -- poems written by peers that we hoped would motivate more reading, critiquing, and a deeper involvement in all literature.

The Waterways teaching artists included Barbara Fisher, Carolyn Green, Alison Koffler, Linda Notovitz, Margo Mack, Mel Cohen, Ruth Wangerin, Ronald G. King, Matthew Hejna-Luque, Zoë Anglesey, Andrea Temple, Denrick Wharton, Beth Ayres, and myself. The many participating school faculty, teachers at the sites, included Paul Allison, William Almedena, Paul Auerbach, John Brathwaite, Gloria Claros, Alicia Clifford, Roger Cox, Phillip Curley, Ulises Diaz-Caolo, Neil Ende, Al Ernest, Pat Fahey, Jill Fowler-Feldman, Herb Goldberg, Ray Goldfeder, Frank Grabinsky, Nancy Hope Lowens Iscaro, Jane Kreinik, Builder Levy, Henry Lyons, Diane Mechanic, John Murray, Janet Nicodemas, Richard Nisa, Diego Rios, Pat Ryan, Raul Seda, Ron Smolkin, Peter Spiro, Vasso Thomas, Geneva Vera, Brenda Watts, Kim Yarrell and Barbara Youngman. More names are on the acknowledgements page of Streams 4.

After “What Freedom of Speech Means to Me,” Streams 4 continued with Michelle’s poem, “Make That Stand” (p.3):

Why can’t we work together
to make things better?
Why can’t we join hand in hand
and make that stand
so we can live in a better land?
Let’s stand up for our rights
whether black or white.

That was followed by a collaboration between Dennis and Erica that addressed prejudice (p.4):

The word hate
is a very challenging word for minorities.
They grow up
in a world full of anger and frustration.

Forty seven different sites participated in the publications that led up to the anthology. One site with which we were to become further involved was the Frederick Douglass Literacy Center set up by Lois Rekosh through the Outreach Program in the old Boys High on Marcy Avenue. Many literacy students were forced out of local public high schools that did not want them on register, because of low skills that would bring down the entire school’s grade point average. Some literacy students were reading on first grade level. Many were learning disabled, but had never been tested. There were children, whose mothers who had left them to work as nannies in New York City.

Phoenix Academy, another early participant in our program, was in a monastery in Westchester. Its register was filled with New York City students put the students into an alternative environment, away from the mean streets of the city. Many came as alternatives to incarceration.

A poem about power came from an upstate New York school after statewide alternative conferences in the Catskills brought together alternative programs:

Power by Norman (p.5)

If I had power, the power of weather,
I would use it to bring nuclear countries
to their knees.
I would pelt them with hail,
and blow winds for days,
make them beg and plead.
Countries stricken by famine
I would rain for them.
Continents frozen by cold,
I would shine for them.

We published Claudia’s poem in Spanish:

La Guitarra Vieja

Tirada en un rincón de una vieja pared,
abandonada, triste, sola y desconsolada,
te encontre en una tarde de primavera.

Sound of the Library by Patrick C. came from a Waterways workshop in the New York Public Library:

Books are on the shelves. Dust is on
the old books that no one picks up.
People’s pencils are scribbling
so they remember what they are reading;
and that’s the sound of the library.

The student pen pal letters remained a popular feature of the anthology. Lourdes, a student at West Side High School, wrote to Rodney, an incarcerated student hoping to get his life together. The correspondence was played out in public through the publications, visible to peers, teachers, parents, and school support personnel.

The following correspondence started because Mel Cohen, a teacher working in my school, asked me if I wanted to have a pen pal on Rikers Island. I said it was okay, so we started writing. Lourdes

March 14, 1989
Dear Lourdes,
I’m gad to have received our letter. I’m doing good so far, but I could be better. I still haven’t heard about the result of the GED test, but I hope I passed it. I’m glad you like my writing. There really isn’t much to do but write and enjoy it.
Well, I’m in here for drug selling. I thought that I could make fast money without getting caught, but now I know better. It was a mistake that I made and I’m going to try to make up for all the time I’ve lost in here.
I’m not the type of guy that has been in and out of jail. This is my first time incarcerated and my last. I don’t expect a girl to wait for me, but if she really cares it would be nice.
The future is a very scary and confusing thought. It brings with it many questions that can’t be answered like: What will I be like?
Will I survive doing the right thing? Well, anyway I’ll talk to you later.

LOURDES
She was once never heard of or given a thought
A stranger to me not yet known.
Was it by accident or maybe just fate
two people revealing thoughts and ideas,
once strangers, now they are friends
She makes me forget all the trouble I’ve had
I unleashed my sorrow and fear,
she gave me warmth care and understanding.
We’ve become good friends
with a lot on our minds,
I hope she still writes me
when I’ve done my time.
Rodney

March 15, 1989
Dear Rodney,
Hi, how are you today? I am glad that you are determined to do the right thing. If you keep up thinking thinking that way you will really go places.
I am feeling very bad today. I am going through some problems this week and I feel like just going away and saying the hell with everyone, but I can’t do that, so I’m going to have to do something else to help myself. I’ll get over it I think that my cold is the main reason for my bad mood, but they’re both my problem.

HEY KID, YOU’RE GETTING OUT! You should be happy. Forget about being scared. You’ve got to think about starting over and doing the right thing, and you’ll be ok. Take my word for it!!! IF NOT, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH ME.
Rodney, you seem like a nice, sweet, and warm person, who made a mistake and who is getting his at together and who wont be back to Rikers. Right, Rodney?!
Sincerely,

Lourdes
PS I REALLY LIKE THE POEM YOU WROTE TO ME.

Responses between Rodney and I are now by phone. Rodney got out of Rikers Island on March 23, 1989. We saw each other on Easter, and we’ve become friends.
Right now, Rodney is visiting relatives, and he’s looking for a job. We talk, maybe twice a week. I’ve written him a letter and given him my home address, so maybe we’ll start writing again.

In 1990 the Howard Beach killing and the assault on the Central Park Jogger had repercussions throughout the city. There were 2 essays:

in “Let’s Stop Racism” Nathan W. wrote,

Who’s to blame?
That is the question asked when racism comes up. Today as I look back and reflect on racism, everyone is pointing the finger at each other. No one is taking a look at what part they played in the incident.
A situation that troubles me the most is that we see racism invading all areas of our life. We find racism in politics. The mayoral fight has turned into what race is more dominant rather than what each candidate can do as our mayor.

and in “Race Relations” William wrote,

All of these things get me upset. Don’t people get tired of having to deal with these issues? I don’t think it’s fair at all how the media takes these issues out of context. The neighborhoods have nothing to do with what goes on inside of them. It’s the residents and how they go about raising their children. If they allow their children to interact with friends of a different race this will allow their kids to get to know a person for who they are, not push them away because of the color of their skin.

The concluding poems in Streams 4 were by Doreena from Concord High School. In “Remember When...” she wrote:

“Remember how you felt when you just knew you were the only freshman who had the jitters, then you saw that all the other freshmen were nervous too.”1

That was followed by Who Are We?:

We are loving,
We are sensitive
And we’ve only just begun,
We are funny, unique and different,
But somehow we are one.

She concluded her poem, We Are, with the lines:

We are the strength this nation needs,
Upon our wisdom, others will feed.
We are sound of body and soul,
We shall go forth and take control.

Streams 4