Listening to the Waves IV

In his NOTES ON WATERWAYS PEDAGOGICAL PROJECT- http://bit.ly/i5PBfg - Richard Kostellanetz wrote:

“The first steps to distinction usually come from doing what others cannot—in sports with technique, in art with form.  The fundamental negative rule is transcending easy moves, whether with one’s body or with words.  Obvious sentiments or clichés are finally no more acceptable than dribbling directly at the basket.  There is a hint of such development in Matthew Rydell’s text “Panorama” on p. 127 of the Streams 8 anthology (1994), where a skinny vertical text becomes a counterpoint to more extended horizontal lines. “



In the same volume, Zenzilé Green concluded her poem, Selfless (on pages 128-30), with these lines:

The poetry flows
from my eyes
an unbearable monsoon.
Unstoppable
overwhelming pressure.
So I plaster on
a feelingless mouth
of burgundy matte
and freeze the sadness
with foundation #6.
Hardened mascara
dark lines under my eyes
covered completely
by Korean sunglasses
a mask of effortless cold
made more effective by life.

Streams 8

Listening to the Waves III

In 1994, a number of NYC’s Alternative High Schools and Programs were designed to teach ESL to students from immigrant families. The STREAMS anthologies welcomed their participation and published the students’ poetry in English and their native languages. Contributions came from schools such as Liberty High School on 18th Street, the International School at Laguardia Community College in Queens, and the Lower East Side Prep just north of Manhattan’s Chinatown.

These poems touched on topics like music, love, and friendship. Many young poets wrote of the loss of friends and family. The theme of leaving home was common to many. Breaking away from tradition and facing a new world with different values has been a theme for teens around the world, since the end of tribal society.

Occasionally we scanned in the handwritten poem, as in the following Asian and East European poems from STREAMS 8.

American Moon by Phan Thuan translated by Ai-Jen Lin Chao




American moon,they say, is the roundest one,
But have they experienced it?
Do they know that the U.S. is:
The paradise of the teenager,
The battle field of the middle-ager,
The hell of the elderly?

If you are not the one who won the battle,
Do you still consider the moon of America
The roundest one?

What a bliss it is to be a teenager in the U.S.!
Every day is a joyous day.
How exciting life is to them,
Can’t compare even with paradise.

What a torture is is to be a middle-ager in the U.S.!
Work! Work! Work! Day by day.
Rent! Bills! Making a living isn’t easy,
Not to mention the fear of being unemployed.

What a misery it is to be elderly in the U.S.
Dusk for them always comes early,
Look at the blue sky through the window
Tear by tear the nostalgic tears flow

Hoping to fly back like birds,
But utterly exhausted,
One can only watch the twilight pass away.

As you see someone succeed,
Do you know how much he paid for it?
If you are not the one who won the battle,
Do you still consider the moon of the U.S. the roundest one?
(page 38-9)





“And My Grandma Can’t Come” by Anna Zalewska

I wish I was four, no troubles, no tears,
when all I would do is play with my friends.
Those days are gone. I’m almost seventeen
and I can’t handle it any more.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I want to dance, I want to get married,
I want to have kids and live by the ocean
I wish that school would start at eleven.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I wish I could love a person like you,
someone who’s sweet and loves me, too.
But my grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I want to learn to play the guitar,
before the music becomes too loud,
I wish all the people who really don’t know me,
would keep their mouths shut
and mind their own business.

I wish my parents would realize that
I’m just a human being.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

Often I wonder if the world would be better
if I wasn’t here. No broken hearts,
no jealousy, no painful rumors.
And still nothing helps
because my grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.
(pages 139-40)

Streams 8

Listening to the Waves II

The Streams anthologies gave NYC Alternative Schools and Programs a space for their students’ writing to be taken seriously. Every student had the opportunity to write a poem. They wrote out of their own experiences in urban communities. Gifted writers found their talents appreciated by a new audience.

In 1994, working with Waterways Teaching Artist, Orfelia Rodriguez Goldstein, Kimberly Robinson put together a chapbook that contained her poem, “Being Your Neighbor’s Neighbor”:

My window is open.
Quick, everyone duck ‘cause all I hear is a buck, buck.
These are sounds I’ve become accustomed to,
But should it be?
My neighborhood gave this luxury to me.
Guns--that’s not the half.
Blades scar and never take away.
Now I must fight each and every day.
Someone looked at me wrong.
Now I’ve made them look like me,
All scarred up for everyone to see.
(excerpted from p.14)

Tratia Wilson’s poem, also in Streams 8, used the experience of children in the hood to reprimand adults for the dangerous level of urban violence:

Come on it’s time to play
live as a child and try not to get hit with a stray
It’s a dangerous long road to go but we will keep striving
to be alive

People might say it’s tough and
rough living in the hood,
But look around
Open your eyes
It’s all around the way.
Kids feel rejected and insecure
That’s why you grown-ups should be
mature
(p.26)

Such strong poems carried the edition forward. The young poets were talking to their peers and their teachers

In her poem, “This Isn’t What You Want,” Chenica Lee wrote:

I can’t write what you want
I can only write what I see
What I see is pain
pain from where I live
(page 30)

Streams 8

Listening to the Waves

In February 1994, Michael Mirakian, Principal of Concord High School on Staten Island, wrote “Our school has worked with the Waterways Project which annually publishes a volume of student works called Streams. This project, under the direction of Richard Spiegel and Barbara Fisher, has proven to be a most worthwhile venture. Mr. Spiegel personally recruits and guides the students. He is so well regarded for his capabilities in extracting from at risk students writings which they ever knew they had in them, that several of our English teachers eagerly await the day he is scheduled to visit us and do a guest lesson.

“I am especially pleased by the end result. To see a youngster’s face when he sees his name and work in a publication is difficult to adequately describe. Suffice it to say that it has to be one of the most breathtaking moments in any educator’s professional career.”

Later that spring, Professor David Bickimer, Director of the Promise of Learning Foundation invited Ten Penny Players’ to hold our year end poetry events at Pace University. NYSCA’s Arts in Education Program Director, Hollis Headrick, directed funds to enable Ten Penny Players to continue publishing Streams. Young Adult Librarians, Merilee Fogelsong, Mary Jane Tacchi, Sandra Payne, and Joanne Rosario included the Streams anthologies in the New York Public Library’s recommended list of books for the teen reader.

Streams 8 opened with poems addressing teenagers’ strength and vulnerability, beginning with Monique’s classic imagery --

I sat on the beach
listening to the waves
crash up against the rocks
like they were in constant battle
thinking to myself,
I am like the rocks
strong and powerful
I can withstand anything.
(excerpted from “I Sat on the Beach” p.1)

Jennifer’s poem explored her friend’s vulnerability --

You walk around
with all your organs exposed
for everyone to see
your kidneys and
your pure, pure blood
rushing through
your cellophane vessels
(excerpted from “Admiring Your Nakedness” p.3)

And Vanessa’s poem asked, “What do you write about when...

...you can’t decipher your emotions.
When your surrounding world is
confusion, and your only shield
seems to be corrupted.
When the future reflects the
Brightness of the sun, but the
Present looks as dismal as
the mud you just stepped in.
What do you write about when
Hope no longer has promise
and “Love” lost its meaning;
when “Nigga” is a
synonym for “Brother”,
and “Bitch is another word to
describe your mother;
when respect in all aspects
has gone down the drain, like
that 40 of Ides just put to your lips,
winding its way to the brain;
when “Black” has no meaning
except for a hole in the
Universe...
(excerpted from “What Do You Write About” p.11)

Streams 8

Flights and Perchings III

In Streams 7, schools were discussed from varied points of view.

“I Wonder” by Sharrif

I wonder if I had never been
with the wrong crowd--
where would I be?
I wonder if I were a teacher--
what would I be teaching?
(page 45)

“The Classroom Where I am Sitting,” was Hope’s description of an alternative school housed in the New York’s South Jamaica projects:

I am sitting in the classroom at SJ40. The teacher, Mrs. Cook, has just finished explaining the lesson on the chalkboard. Now she asks questions. She explains each answer one by one and very slowly; so that she is understood.
At this time my classmates, who are four girls (including myself) and five boys, begin to get into our lesson. We each sit at our desk and think hard. There is not much talking. I hear the pencils scratching the paper. I hear pages in books turning, the fan going, and cars passing by outside. The class begins to get a little noisy because some of the students have finished.
We have many windows in our school. It looks like they haven’t been washed in a long time. The blinds are tan and dingy. In the morning the windows are open. In the afternoon all windows must be closed before leaving. Our lights look like ice trays. We have one that’s broken. Otherwise they are in good condition.
(page 60)

“School Daze” by Bell on the facing page, described a different attitude:

I hope they don’t want
much from me. I’ll give my
best; and hope they will
remember the things I forgot.
Why do I sit here? Why must
I stay? Only thing I’ve learned:
it’s not Burger King. I can’t
have it my way.
(page 61)

In "What Do I Like About Rikers Island,” Sam wrote how he felt about the school in prison:

I like school at Rikers Island because you can think and you can learn from your mistakes. I like it because you meet nice people and they care about you -- some people. If they did not care about you, they would not have a school. They would just let you kill each other. I like the people that work here because they do things that your own family would not do for you.
(page 64)

In contrast, Cindy wrote in “Children” about her father’s interest in education:

He brought my mother this country so she could make something out of herself. He found her a job and made her go to school to get her diploma. He also helped the rest of the kids to go to school. I wish I could give every child a father and mother like mine.
(page 135)

Flights and Perchings II

Many accounts throughout Streams 7 looked at the subject of friendship from various perspectives of urban adolescents.

I will always remember you
for the beautiful times
you gave me
I will always remember you
for making me feel free

I will remember you forever
my friend because
you showed me how
to be me
(Sheila, page 83)

The depth and beauty of friendship was expressed in Spanish as well as English:

Tu eres una bella persona,
importante e intersante.
Tu amor hacia los demas
es immenso y profundo
como el mar.

Tu honestidad y tu sinceridad
enriquesen dia tras dia
el desarrollo de tu vida.

Eres un buen amigo
que sirve como antidoto
a quien esta desilucionado
de lo bello de la vida.

Reconoce la importancia
de la buena educacion;
por eso te preocupa
por la superacion tuy
y de los demas.

Tu eres un ser inigualable.
Siempre esta dispuesto
a escuchar al noble,
lo mismo que al torpe.
Pues para ti todos somos
hijos de Dios.

Que Dios te bendigas siempre “Eugenio”
y que nuestra amistad
perdure por toda una vida.
(Valentin’s “Querido Amigo” and his English translation are on pages 20-1)

The difficulty of making friends was expressed in “My Point of View”

I find it hard to make friends with people
I want to be liked by everyone
I think that I’m too serious sometimes
I know that I have a good personality
I am kind and loving when I want to be
I love when I am treated equally as everyone else
I hate hypocrites who lie and deceive you
I desire love and eternal happiness
I say that I strive to get what I want
I feel that life is sometimes unfair
I dream of a better place to live in
I am going to make it against all the odds that may lie ahead.
(Sophy, page 19)

Peer support during rehabilitation was the essence of correspondence between V and Tiger: “And remember, if ever you feel messed up inside, that in V you have a friend to talk to, even if it’s only through the computer.”
(page 25)

In “My First Full-Time Job” friends helped each other find work in the city: “One summer two of my closest friends, Harrison and Mark, joined me in a hunt for jobs. Harrison and I went about canvassing Manhattan for job openings. We looked for almost any type of work except fast-food work.”
(Trevis, page 97)

Betrayed friendship, guilt, urban junkyards, greed, drugs and the unbearable weight of the paranoia dominated the narrator’s conscience in “Murder He Wrote”: “This place was known to me and my man as the car cemetery. In there was a little of something: crack bottles, needles, old rags, human waste and dead dogs that either got shot or electrocuted.”
(William, page 7)

In “An Experience That Changed My Life,” a tragedy at a celebrity basketball game in City College led the narrator to realize: “how much I took life for granted. It also helped me to understand that you should always tell the people you love how much they mean to you, because you’ll never know when they will be gone! I always thought nothing like this could happen to me, but I’m living proof that it can!!!”
(Andrea, page 13)

Streams 7

Flights and Perchings

Two quotes from William James’s “The Principles of Psychology” (1890) opened Streams 7 (1993):

“Consciousness...does not not appear to itself chopped up in bits . . . A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it here after, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.”

And,

“As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is the different pace of its parts. Like a bird’s life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.”

For Ten Penny Players, the streams metaphor applied to the many different schools in NYC from which contributions to the anthology “streamed” in; particularly those schools serving students outside “the mainstream.” Over 60,000 students were attending New York City’s Alternative High Schools and Programs in 1993. The anthology contributors’ streams of thought were channeled together as a strong current.

The Streams anthologies were particularly useful for discussions during “Family Group,” a period each alternative school set aside to help students articulate and evaluate their emotions while getting support and guidance from peers and professionals. Family Group was put in place by Stephen Phillips, the superintendent of New York City’s Alternative High Schools and Programs.

Damon wrote, “Streams”

All of our emotions
go into streams.
All of it’s told.
All of it’s seen.

The stream of life,
the stream of thought,
the stream of poetry
can’t be bought
in a store
or on the shelf.
Reach for it deeply
and you will find
it in yourself.

The harmony of it
and the power it holds.
Don’t fight the power.
Be bold.
Just grasp the light,
so pretty and green.
Open your hand and see,
you’ve reached the stream.
(page 67)

Streams 7