youth speaks
For creative writing class, we have to go to two poetry/fiction readings. Being myself, I waited until now to do this. Last night, there were two poetry readings, one at the University held by the creative writing department, the other a youth reading at a coffee shop a block away. The one at the university would probably be very good. I figured the one at the coffee shop probably wouldn’t be. Worse yet, I feared it might be very Willy Street (i.e. poems about recycling and Iran). Of course, being me, I went to the one at the coffee shop. Convenience.
And it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen all year.
A group of high schoolers from a school poetry club called Youth Speaks filled the little coffee shop. Some teachers and parents were there to watch and listen and sometimes read as well. The high schoolers read their poems, most about unrequited love scribbled onto journal pages. I’m sure that the poetry they read over at the creative writing department would be considered better quality by most standards. But these kids were so excited about poetry and so real. They cheered each other on and filled the room with life and brilliance and bravely beared their sweet souls up at the microphone. With confidence.
So cool.
And some of the poems were really very good.
It made me wonder what poems I would have written in high school had I written poems. It made me think about my sister, Abbey, and wish they had something like that at KM. I bet she’s a wonderful poet. It also reminded me how awesome high schoolers are.
So cool.









