New Stories in New Places: The WITS Blog is Moving!

We are excited to announce that Seattle Arts & Lectures has a new blog! Sonder is a new place for us to gather the stories of different voices from across the organization: those of writers, speakers, students, teachers, readers, supporters, listeners, and all points in between.

The posts written by our talented WITS Writers, as well as those about our school visits and other WITS happenings that have populated this blog, will now live on Sonder, alongside the many other ideas and events happening at SAL.  You can find out more about Sonder here.

If you would like to focus on WITS-related posts, you can select the “Writers in the Schools” category or simply follow this link:

http://salblog.org/category/writers-in-the-schools/

We hope you will join us there!

Upcoming Events – WITS Writers in the Community

When they are not in the classroom encouraging creativity and enriching young minds, the WITS writers are actively reading, performing, hosting, and teaching in the community. Be sure to check out some of the exciting events happening around town (and farther afield) in the next couple of months.

When: August 13^th 7pm
Where: Hollow Earth Radio
What: Presenting Alan Sincic and his story “Sugar”
WITS Writer Involved:
Corinne Manning’s The Furnace Reading Series with Big Fiction
More Info:
https://www.facebook.com/events/854245931332525/

When: August 19^th 7:30pm
Where: The Jewel Box Theater
What: Jennifer Jasper’s Family Affair – Cabaret Served up Family-Style
WITS Writer Involved: Jeanine Walker
More Info:
http://jewelboxtheater.do206.com/event/2015/08/19/family-affair-cabaret-served-up-family-style

When: August 20th 7:00 p.m.
Where: SoulFood Coffee House, Redmond, WA
What: Poetry reading
WITS Writer Involved: Ann Teplick

When: August 29^th (time TBA)
Where: Heller Center for Arts & Humanities, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
What: Reading with Aaron Anstett
WITS Writer Involved: Erin Malone

When: August 29^th 12pm-10pm
Where: Starts in the Hing Hay Park (ID) and ends at the Nepo House (Beacon Hill)
What: Nepo 5k Art Walk
WITS Writers Involved: Rachel Kessler & Sierra Nelson – Vis-a-Vis Society
More Info:
http://www.nepohouse.org

When: September 25, 7pm
Where: Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA
What: A reading for the paperback release of Horses That Buck
WITS Writers Involved: Margot Kahn Case

When: September 26, 6:30-8:30pm
Where: INK/Spark, Spokane, WA
What: 2-hour “skillshop” on writing the profile
WITS Writers Involved: Margot Kahn Case

When: September 27, 4pm
Where: Shakespeare & Co., Missoula, MT
What: A reading for the paperback release of Horses That Buck
WITS Writers Involved: Margot Kahn Case

Many of the WITS writers also teach at Hugo House. Head to the course catalog to register for some of these upcoming classes: http://hugohouse.org/classes/course-catalog/

Visual Poetry Laboratory with Greg Stump and Sierra Nelson
Create new collaborative and individual writing with text and visual work, plus a mini-zine celebrating our collective efforts by weekend’s end. We’ll look at work by artists such as Julie Doucet, Phillip Guston, Nedko Solakov, Raymond Pettibon, and William Steig…
Start Date: 8/22/2015 – 10:00 AM

Yearlong Manuscript Class in Prose with Peter Mountford
An updated version of the original yearlong class at Hugo House, this advanced course is for students working in either fiction or nonfiction. The class will contain a mix of genres, and the models we look at will be from…
Start Date: 9/15/2015 – 7:00 PM

Advanced Personal Essay Workshop with Peter Mountford
Hilary Mantel said: “Memoir’s not an easy form. If other people are to care about your life, art must intervene.” It can be disorienting to transform actual people and events into characters and plot elements in an essay or memoir,…
Start Date: 9/15/2015 – 5:00 PM

Yearlong Manuscript Class in Young Adult Fiction with Karen Finneyfrock
This class is open to those writing in any genre of fiction intended primarily for a teenage audience. Through reading assignments, lectures, in-class exercises, special guests, and workshopping your manuscript, you will learn to hone your voice, develop a clear…
Start Date: 9/16/2015 – 7:10 PM

The Mechanics of Comics and Graphic Novels with David Lasky and Greg Stump
Learn to develop and strengthen the storytelling skills used to create successful comics and graphic novels. A cartoonist faces choices about composition, point of view, emphasis, symbols, poses, and other aspects of visual communication. We’ll look at examples from masters…
Start Date: 9/19/2015 – 10:00 AM

Window…

By Vicky Edmonds, WITS Writer-in-Residence

***

When we sit down to write we are writing a window into midair and then opening it and looking through. We can look outside of ourselves into different places in the world that exist or don’t exist, or we can look inside ourselves, where the air is sweet and every realm of possibility is also waiting for us. Neither is greater than or less than the other, both allow us to see things we’ve never seen before, but going inside – that’s where I want to go. I want to walk down every hallway that exists in me, I want to be in every room before I don’t live in this house anymore, and I want to bring every beautiful thing that’s in there back out into the world and somehow leave them as gifts before I go.

When children pick up a pencil I can almost hear the drawing of the frame beginning, and I can hear the pulleys and the weights behind the frame that will almost make it effortless for them to open and go through.

I give them instructions… “This is a simile.” “This is how you write details of imagery.” I make little templates like blueprints where they practice, filling in the blanks to see how it feels. It’s almost like an art class. We put down the paper and show them the blue, green, pink, then something catches inside them that makes them gravitate to that color and that paintbrush. We have never really known what causes that choice, only that when we let it happen we are amazed to watch the results. All artwork has this effect on us. We try putting it down but it keeps calling us. It takes different forms, but whatever we seem to make (or love in someone else’s work) shows part of us back to ourselves that we couldn’t have seen without that mysterious mirror.

So there they are, 30 children in a room, all with paper in front of them, pencil in midair, and I try to help them find the window so they know it’s there. Underneath logic, underneath expectations or grades, lies an entry point to their own truth that only they can find. I try to take away any worries… tell them they never have to share. I want to make this a place where they can come and explore any time they want to. But there is this paper calling, like white walls they’ve never been able to see through before, and the pencil is the tool that cuts through the sheetrock, and suddenly they can see more… and then they can see more…

***

Feelings Poem… permission to tell the truth

[He said he couldn’t think of anything to write, that his mind was just blank. So I asked him to write about ‘blank’. He couldn’t believe that was allowed.]

My mind is blank, fleeting of thoughts, ideas, just blank.
The writing is not singing to me, it is not resonating
with excitement, eager to tell me the words.
No inspiration, no spark, just emptiness.
Looking for the components, the parts required to write,
looking for the key that I am so clearly missing.
Lost, searching to no avail,
trying to find the words on the page that fit.
Then I realize, I have already found them.

Kai Brook,
8th Grade

***

Apology Poem… finding all the unspoken regrets
that have been caught in our throats, just under our breath

[Her teacher told me that she had been sad for a long time because her friend had moved away and she couldn’t find the words to talk about it. But there was another friend who was trying to comfort her, and she found the words to say everything to her.]

Dear Isabella,
I’m sorry for being mean to you when I’m sad or mad.
I was like dark clouds storming at you.
I was like 1000 pounds hurting you,
being mean to you, pushing you away when I really needed help.
I want to be more like soda and popcorn
at a movie, nice and funny. Will you please forgive me?
Yes       Yes       Yes       or No       (please circle)
Of course I’ll forgive you.
You may have pushed me away,
but we were only an inch away
in my heart.

Bella Sanborn,
3rd grade

***

Nature Personification… being grateful for the gifts so generously given

[I love it when you get to see them watching the world through the window.]

The rain rushes
to help plants and grass and flowers grow.
Rain is water rushing to help.
The rain whispers a rain song.
The rain reaches for my hand.
The rain sings the song softly,
and the rain dances with me.

Desmond Thompson,
2nd grade

***

Inquiry & Passion Poem… sinking deep into something they’re passionate about and then finding all the questions that call to them

[I loved that he found the words to describe his love for this.]

History

Can you hear it? That sound of knowledge and teaching?
Can you feel it? The touch of a reassuring hand spinning you in the right direction?
Can you smell it? That old, musty stench of history and a story never heard?
This is learning, the love of knowing more than before.
This is the teaching of worlds long gone by.
This is the force that keeps dragging you back for more.
This is an adventure, an always exciting plot.
This is history, the never ending story.

Isaiah Lenoue,
7th Grade

***

Invisible Beauties Poem… finding the unseen qualities inside us that can shine so brightly inside that they can help us find our way

[And when you’re through the window, when you’re in the inside place, all the instructions disappear, and you can see everything…]

My voice is like
a bright silver arrow
racing toward the target of my life,
never stopping
till I stop pulling back
the bow of my spirit.

Abigail Peterson,
2nd grade

***

Nature Narratives: Teaching Story Structure to Third Grade Classes at Whittier Elementary

By Clare Hodgson Meeker, WITS Writer-in-Residence

Creating a story from idea to finished book sounds like an ambitious undertaking for an eight-year-old. But I am always amazed at how quickly these young writers take a character and run with it when they are given a simple three-problem approach to creating a story. Asked to write a fictional story with an animal as the main character, each student picked an animal and had to find three facts about it that could be turned into an opening problem for their story. For example, having to find food, shelter, raise a family or deal with predators or humans interfering with their world. Then they prepared outlines of their stories using this worksheet.

In my mini-lesson on beginning a story, I asked them to emphasize a problem or event that grabs the reader’s attention right away and pulls us into the story – either something the character wants (a goal) or an inciting event that propels the character to take action and do something. Here is a great example from Kian Graham in Ms. McGrath’s class who picked an endangered animal, the Pangolin, for his main character. Note how the sound effects help create a sense of urgency and add energy to the story:

           Pangey the Pangolin lived in the South African forest. He was as happy as can be, when, “chop, chop, chop!” Some construction workers were cutting down the South American forest. “Chop!” The tree Pangey was sitting on was being cut down.

           Luckily for Pangey, it was only with an axe, so he had time to jump to a different tree. He realized that he should get out of there. He leaped from tree to tree for hours until he grew very sleepy.

From then on, we focus on story development – the steps the main character takes to reach his or her goal and the problems (at least two) they face along the way. We talk about how every action or inaction causes some effect on the character or their situation, good or bad. The idea is to make the character struggle until he finally figures out how to solve the story problem. My favorite part of story development is “the darkest moment,” just before the story’s climax. Renowned children’s author Jane Yolen describes this as getting your character up a tree with no idea how he or she will get down. It can be a situation that is life threatening or an emotionally low moment in the character’s journey. But from this low point, the character somehow summons the courage and figures out how to solve the problem (the climax) and reach his or her goal (the end).

A surprise twist is a great way to end a story, and Kian surprised us all with this ending. After Pangey bravely breaks out of a cage he’s imprisoned in, he is captured by a nasty crook who says,”This one’ll sell for millions!” and puts him in the back of a car in Washington D.C:

          They passed by nine black limousines. “Wait, what? That means the president was in one of them,” the cooks thought. Suddenly, one of the limos pulled out of the group. The other limos followed. The limo window opened and Barack Obama’s face appeared.

          “What are you guys doing?”

          “Ummmmmm,” the crooks stammered. “We were giving this pet away for a national yard sale,” one of the crooks lied. “We’ll give it to you if you want it?” the crook said.

          “Okay, I will take it,” said Barack Obama.

           As soon as the president took him, Pangey felt a wave of calmness come over him. Pangey and Barack Obama drove back to the White House and Barack Obama gave Pangey the leftovers of his lunch, which was chicken, potatoes, and gravy with a side of salad. Pangey ate very slowly.

          When Pangey finished, Barack Obama played with Pangey until they both tired each other out.

          Next Barack went and told one of his men to go to Petco and get a drinking bowl and a very nice dog bed for Pangey. Pangey ran around in circles, jumped up on his hind legs, and hugged Barack Obama, so Barack hugged him back.

THE END

Writing in the Dark

By Samar Abulhassan, WITS Writer-in-Residence

     “Black silk, shelter me.
     I need
     more of the night before I open
     eyes and heart to illumination. I must still
     grow in the dark like a root
     not ready, not ready at all.” 

               -Denise Levertov

     I must write the same poem over and over,
     for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.

     If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge
     of myself, I must live as a blind man

     who runs through rooms without touching the furniture.

                -Ilya Kaminsky

Teaching artists often have a handful of foolproof writing lessons on hand. For myself, I can usually trust that if I hand a young writer a cobalt, sunset-orange or sea green paint swatch and ask a row of questions meant to de-familiarize a color (perhaps supplemented by Federico Garcia Lorca’s green winds, or Dottie Lasky’s green secrets), the results are vibrant and unexpected. I have always loved films beaming with saturated colors and poems that heighten seeing. I have also always been in love with nighttime and writing born out of “darkness.” One night, on a weeklong writing retreat this past February at Friday Harbor Labs, I walked into town along a pitch-dark path lined with madronas, feeling my way through the cool dark. I emerged startlingly nourished by trail’s end: I was almost sad to see the street lamps.

This year in several classes at B.F. Day and the Hutch School, I hoped to gently nudge us all toward an intimacy of writing meant to record the giddiness and terror of stumbling. As the end of this school year nears, one of my favorite after-images of teaching was witnessing a sea of open faces, eyes closed, pen moving across paper. Asking students to close their eyes (blindfolds work great too) I invite students to allow dream logic to reign over waking logic on the white page, for an allotted amount of time, in the safe container of classroom. I reminded students to welcome the private experience, although sharing, like always, was welcome.

Before we begin, I dim the shades, turn off the classroom lights, and I read them Denise Levertov’s wonderful poem, “Writing in the Dark” as an invitation. Here’s an excerpt: “Keep writing in the dark: a record of the night, or words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing, words that flew through your mind, strange birds crying their urgency with human voices, or opened as flowers of a tree that blooms only once in a lifetime: words that may have the power to make the sun rise again.”

Students write for ten minutes, with felt-tip pens, inside a quiet hum. Some students feel immense freedom during this experiment; other writers feel uncertain and anxious. Perhaps both. Sometimes I also read them Levertov’s poem “With Eyes at the Back of our Heads,” offering the first line as a launching point for their own excavations. Often the results are beautifully raw – fragments inked in innocent script: cursive that crawls and leaps and zigzags beyond margins. “Practice will reveal how one hand instinctively comes to the aid of the other to keep each line clear of the next,” Levertov writes. It’s true: writing in the dark, students come into new contact with their hands, remembering the physicality of writing. Yes! Still, even when they inadvertently write over words — the “mishaps” are delicate, complex, lovely — layers of meaning and ideas trimmed, intermingling. To give you a brief glimpse into the marks students made, I offer a cento here, a patchwork poem made from the notes of fifth grade students of B.F. Day and middle and high school students of the Hutch School.

Pages of Mistakes (Ave)

Glowing eyes, the power to see and shine (Luz)
hidden rivers oar like subtle shadows
when they are echoing inside doors (Jenny)
walking into the car of midnight and driving it (Oliver)
Don’t worry: it will be a little darkish
try to think of it as a beautiful bird flying your imagination
to the next step (Minh)
Trees tempt me with their swaying branches
They are asking me to climb them (Eva)
Am I afraid? Of course. Am I willing to be brave?
Yes like the moon and yes like the sound of dawn (Ave)
as the lights go off my mind is at ease (Ginger)
It does not stay restless like a tiger (Marc)
secret rivers that never rush by (Jude)
sorrow of the scarecrow (Megan)
as gentle as a feather coming to you
in your hands and heads knocking
at your door (Marc)
don’t bloom worry … clear voices …
flowers … drums … now what words (Jaylynn)

Things I Know at Seattle Children’s Hospital

By Ann Teplick, WITS Writer-in-Residence

Enter the Heart

I know when I walk through the doors of Seattle Children’s Hospital, I will enter the hive of a heart. There is so much love. I know there are families from all reaches of the planet. I know the scent of anxiety and uncertainty, and that when I walk into the classrooms, I will write poetry with youth who share what may seem impossible to imagine. I know the halo of their courage and resilience, and how I am a much stronger person because of it.

At Children’s, I write with youth in the Jan Sayers classroom—where those, whose health allows them to be around others, stay current with their school work. I also work in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit.

Reading and writing poetry helps me to make sense of the world. I choose, with care, which poems to bring into the classrooms, and these are the ones I dizzy over.

I know the moment I fall for a poem. Sometimes, it’s like snow that kisses an eyelash. Sometimes, like a peacock that fans its teal.

When I find a poem I love, I read it many times. I don’t try to dismantle its weave, to understand it. I sit with it, and tuck it beneath my pillow. I listen to its music—its Yo-Yo Ma, its Mic Jagger, its Merle Haggard, its B.B. King.

Enter the Cow

One poem I love, and often open my residencies with, is Joyce Sutphen’s “Things I Know.” This is a poem about growing up on a farm. Which appeals to me because it’s not my experience. I love the imagery, from the subtle turn of a cow’s head, to the chicken pecking gravel, to the rain that slides in silver chains over the machine shed’s roof. I love the way the poem ends, the knowing of everything: “trunk by branch by leaf into sky.”

THINGS I KNOW

by Joyce Sutphen

I know how the cow’s head turns
to gaze at the child in the hay aisle;

I know the way the straw shines
under the one bare light in the barn.

How a chicken pecks gravel into silt
and how the warm egg rests beneath

the feathers—I know that too, and
what to say, watching the rain slide

in silver chains over the machine
shed’s roof. I know how one pail

of water calls to another and how
it sloshes and spills when I walk

from the milk-house to the barn.
I know how the barn fills and

then empties, how I scatter lime
on the walk, how I sweep it up.

In the silo, I know the rung under
my foot; on the tractor, I know

the clutch and the throttle; I slip
through the fence and into the woods,

where I know everything: trunk
by branch by leaf into sky.

Sutphen’s “Things I Know” is an invitation to any writer to share their bounty of knowing. Their area of expertise. When one is challenged with illness, it’s easy to misplace the compass that steers us to our strengths.

I begin the conversation by asking my students what they feel they are good at, what they know well. We generate a group list, which has included knowing how to scramble an egg; knowing how to irritate our mothers, fathers, and siblings; knowing how to lie; alienating others; pretending we are okay; breaking hearts; mending hearts; playing baseball; playing the trumpet; loneliness; being confused; swimming; sleeping; snoring; telling jokes; trying to be perfect; sabotaging ourselves; planting a garden; skateboarding; and teaching our hamsters tricks.

I then read “Things I Know,” which is followed by a group reading—each of us with a couplet. I love when many voices ring the room with a poem.

We talk about what we’ve noticed about this poem. It’s written in couplets. The words “I Know” repeat themselves many times. We talk about the way repetition underscores importance, and creates rhythm in a piece of writing. We talk about words, phrases, and images that we like, and why. We talk about what we don’t fancy, and where we have questions. We talk about the poem’s small moments, and overall, what the author might be trying to say. We share similar experiences to that of the narrator, if we have them. We shower the poem with sweet-smelling hay. But really, the poem showers us. Here are some of the student poems inspired by Joyce Sutphen’s “Things I Know.”

I KNOW FISHING (age 10)

I know how to catch fish in rivers,
lakes and oceans.
I know how to put baits and hooks
on my line.
I know you have to be patient
while waiting for fish to bite.
I know where to fish
by using my polarized glasses.
I’ve known fishing for seven years
and counting.

A BRUSH WITH DEATH (age 16)

The euphoria of staying afloat,
a pitch-black warmth of a mother’s womb.
The detachment and the praying at night,
the still silent air with the vibrancy
of a dirty old tomb.

It numbs moon-touched skin and pulls
you to the heat of your core.
The way you wake up in the middle of the night,
caramelized eyes, that cracked-open door.

Sweat that runs with the salt and the blades
that slide through your abdomen
and past pale skin.
It’s the realization,
the finality,
dread that your death will be painful.

The invisible warmth of a loving hand,
the after-glow of another worldly night.
A God-given gift.
What’s it like to wake up the next day?
Determined and willing to fight.
This is what I know.

I KNOW HOW TO LOVE LIFE, EVEN WHEN IT HATES ME (excerpt, age 17)

I know how it feels when life hates you,
when nothing goes right, and everything goes wrong.

I know how it feels to want to give up.
Such an easy way out can be tempting.

I know it’s hard to try to love life,
when all you see when you look around is bad.

I know you will find plenty to love, though,
if you look closely at the things you may feel are small.

I know sometimes I feel lonely here,
and think that my friends have forgotten me.

But I know they are just busy and stressed
and they don’t know how to talk to me in this situation.

I know that my illnesses will always be there
and some will worsen with time.

But I know I have family and friends around me
who will help me live the most fulfilling life I can.

Here are two poems, also inspired by Joyce Sutphen’s “Things I Know,” which were written collaboratively by students at Children’s and students at Mercer Island High School, in a special project this spring—

I KNOW WATER (ages 11 and 16)

I know how to swim. Diving into the cool blue water.
I know how the water tastes like bleach and burns your nose.
I know how to propel the water and pull myself forward.
I know the rush of waves crashing against me when I’m racing to the finish.
I know how the butterflies in my stomach feel when I step onto the block.
I know how they fly away as soon as I hit the water.
I know how looking at my coach, and hearing his words of support and congratulation, make me feel relieved.
I wish that diving off the block would be easier for me.
But I know how swimming lights my day.

I KNOW WARM VELVET (ages 14 and 16)

I know how to make delicious red velvet cupcakes.

I know how to cream the butter with the sugar
and crack the pale eggs on the side of the metal bowl.

I know how the machine rhythmically clinks and beats as it mixes the deep red batter.

I know how to pour the silky batter into the pan and smooth it out.

I know how to put the cupcakes into the oven with careful hands,
feeling the warm rush of heat brush across my rosy checks.

I wish I knew how they tasted as I wait impatiently for them to finish baking.

I hear the timer ding, and I know how it feels to take the first bite
of the warm, moist cake; how it delights my taste buds.

Enter the Caterpillar

Amy Gerstler is a poet whose work I love, as well. Her “Advice from a Caterpillar,” is another poem I’ve tucked beneath my pillow. It’s crisp and witty, with advice that articulates the precision of a bulls-eye.

ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR
by Amy Gerstler

Chew your way into a new world.
Munch leaves. Molt. Rest. Molt
again. Self-reinvention is everything.
Spin many nests. Cultivate stinging
bristles. Don’t get sentimental
about your discarded skins. Grow
quickly. Develop a yen for nettles.
Alternate crumpling and climbing. Rely
on your antennae. Sequester poisons
in your body for use at a later date.
When threatened, emit foul odors
in self-defense. Behave cryptically
to confuse predators: change colors, spit,
or feign death. If all else fails, taste terrible.

I use this poem to compliment Sutphen’s “Things I Know,” because in life’s grand scheme—first, we know things; then, we know them well; and finally, we can dish out advice, right? Here are some of the student poems inspired by the caterpillar.

HOW TO READ MINDS (age 10)

First, buy a high-tech radio. Then, take it apart
and keep all the important things from the radio.
Next, buy a hat and a small satellite
and mount it on the hat. Now, go to the market
and buy hamburger ingredients to grill the patty.
And put the parts of the radio in the patty.
Then, put the burger together and eat it.
Put your hat on and wear headphones.
Now, plug the headphone into your satellite dish
and listen to people’s thoughts.

HOW TO FIX A LAPTOP (age 9)

First, what you could do is take apart the computer and wipe out
the memory card. If that doesn’t work, you can throw it in the
trash. Then take apart the computer and burn four red wires. Cut
three yellow wires and drop it in the sink. What you want to do
next is connect the yellow wires with the green wires. Then put
the computer back together and carry it to the ocean. When the
computer gets to the ocean, I’m going to tie dynamite to it and
light it and then throw it in the ocean. Bye-bye computer.

ADVICE ABOUT A KIDNEY TRANSPLANT (age 12)

It’s sore after the surgery.
It feels like you can’t move,
like you’re paralyzed.
If you move, if feels like you’ve been stabbed
a million times in your side.
After a week, you can try to get up
and walk around.
My first step felt weird, like I was taller,
because you grow and you don’t even feel it.
Don’t start running around.
You’ll feel limpy like an old man.
But the more you walk, eventually
the better you’ll feel.

ADVICE TO MYSELF (excerpt, age 15)

You aren’t defined by who you were,
but who you are now.
Remember, you are not dirt,
don’t let others treat you like that.
You are skillful in many things,
my little divergent.
Use your skills to help, not hurt,
especially yourself.
Stop beating yourself up
with the many “yous.”
Look at the limits you draw
yourself.
Pretend you have forgotten, and slip through.
Peace will never exist,
it is simply an illusion, along with hope,
but be the fool who uses illusion for comfort.

ADVICE TO ME (age 13)

Be true to who you are.
Don’t let people change you.
Hold yourself together.
Safety pin by safety pin, fix your torn heart.
Smile. Laugh. Giggle. Joke.
Be what you want to be.
Watch the slowly ticking clock.
Watch the hours tick by,
counting down your time left.
Live to the fullest.
Try with no regrets.
Hold your head high.
Protect your heart and mind,
because every princess has a crown.
Don’t let yours fall.
Be true to who you are.

Hopefully, we can tuck this poet’s last line, “Be true to who you are” beneath our pillows, as we navigate our days, as we try to walk strong, as we reflect upon the things we know well—knowing nothing can take those away.

The Resuscitation of Childhood: A WITS Reading with Matthew Burgess, Jason Koo, Erin Malone, Emily Perez, and Tiphanie Yanique

By WITS Interns Laura Burgher and Tracy Gregory

As new interns of the Seattle Writers in the Schools program, we were eager to hear perspectives from the panel of nationwide WITS writers presenting at this year’s AWP conference in Minneapolis. Each writer spoke about past or current residencies, working with students from 2^nd grade through high school. We followed the threads of commonality that wove through each of the writer’s experiences as they shared stories of working with students, and the influence this had on their own writing. In their students’ work they all found a freedom, a wide-open space of play and creativity, that by tapping into they were able to access new levels of creativity in their own work. They all spoke very highly of the talent of the students they work with and find immense value in teaching.

Matthew Burgess, who teaches 1^st and 2^nd grade students in Brooklyn, believes there is an inner poet in all people, and that children especially embody this poet by embracing nonsense. When faced with a nonsensical phrase, the adult mind would dismiss it, while the child “jumps right in to keep the song going.” Matthew credits his students with teaching him how to write. Jason Koo read a poem he wrote based on an assignment he had given to his 3^rd and 4^th grade students in New York, who he believes are much better poets than adults. While we have suffering, he says, they come to the page with energy, imagination, and fun.

Although creativity overflows in the younger grades, Erin Malone, from our own WITS program in Seattle, recognized that her 5^th graders tended to fall back to a “safer” place in their writing by returning to rhyme. When she pushes them to write outside of their comfort zone, their writing reveals a glimpse into their complicated inner lives. Erin noticed a trend in her students’ poems that draw from and address fears. She pulls from a similar place of fear and loss in writing her own book, Hover. (Erin will be reading from Hover this Wednesday, 4/22 at Elliott Bay Books).

Emily Perez, working in high schools in Houston, realized that most of her students censor themselves in their writing. She uses “experiments” to encourage them to take risks. She spoke of working with a student who had already developed her poetic voice, but by providing a safe environment to take risks in, the student wrote in an original and powerful way. Tiphanie Yanique also works with high school students, in New York, and read from an accomplished student writer. She attributes WITS with the development of her teaching and writing skills, which she sees as intricately intertwined.

Using the language of the panelists, including their poems and their student’s poems, we wrote the following interpretation:

wake the poet

find yourself an ocean

bump around in the blue

join in the interior feathered moss

dissolve what ifs (is blindness)

 

light a match into the windbreak

of your hand

fold tufts of clouds back

like moths eating sky

into your sweaters

 

scour the lion’s stomach

be the king of anything

 

when the ink runs dry

you faint

so make sure to sing

beautiful gigantic things

 

Crumbs

By Margot Kahn Case, WITS Writer-in-Residence

For my 12-week course at Franklin High School, we’ve been working on profiles, or portraits, of other people. Each week we tackle one aspect of getting to know a person. How do they identify themselves? How do they present themselves to the world? Where have they come from? What’s important to them? Who and/or what do they love? What are their secrets, their dark sides? What do they want in life? To practice asking these questions of others outside of class, we ask them of ourselves in class first.

For our third session together, I brought in food. I’m no veteran teacher, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that a little food goes a long way when it comes to paying attention. “I brought you snacks,” I said to kick off class. “So listen up!” Everyone cheered. So easy!

Together, we read two essays from an old 2010 issue of Saveur Magazine. “Lost in Translation” by Monique Truong is an excerpt from her book Bitter in the Mouth. It’s about how her South Vietnamese family first encountered Jell-O salad on the table of their North Carolina neighbors who were kind enough to have them over for dinner. “We were horrified,” she writes, “which was really saying something considering that this man, woman, and child had only months before escaped from a country at war.” In “Our Daily Bread”, Richard Rodriguez remembers the simplicity of his father’s refried beans and chorizo. It was a dish his father made daily, and one that Rodriguez didn’t fully appreciate until after his father had passed away.

We read these two essays and talked about how much we learn from the narrators—Where are they from? What are their families like? What is important to them? Family, respect, ritual, hard work. We talked about how these essays are about food, yes—but the food is really just a vehicle to talk about so much more.

In the penultimate paragraph of Rodriguez’s essay he talks about Proust’s Madeleine, so we talk a little about Proust’s work being an exploration of how memory works. We talk about the difference between voluntary and involuntary memory—voluntary memory being the memory we call upon (What’s her phone number? Where did I put my homework? What year did the Civil War begin?) and involuntary memory, those memories that comes to us unbidden (walking down the street we catch a whiff of blossoming roses and think of our grandmother who used to wear a rose-scented perfume). I gave everyone a madeleine cookie and instructed them not to eat it until I started reading:

“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the affect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ….Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? …And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of Madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little Madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.”

What is Proust talking about? He takes a sip of tea and all the hardships of his life—even the fact that one day he will die!—everything falls away and all that fills his head is the memory of being with his aunt on Sunday mornings before going to church, sitting in her bedroom and eating this cookie dipped in a cup of tea. Taste and smell have the power to flood us with memories, have the power to evoke experience and emotion. And they can be powerful writing tools, as well.

After the crumbs were brushed from our desks, we set to work. The assignment was (choose one):

Write about a food you love. Or a food you hate.

Write about a food that is important to you or your family.

Write about a memorable meal (because it was so delicious, or because something wonderful or terrible happened).

There were no blank pages on this one. Everyone wrote. About a week later we were lucky enough to have Molly Wizenberg visit, which was an inspiring experience for many. Here are a few excerpts of the results.

Lefse

In Calmar, the family piled into the kitchen, mashing potatoes, rolling dough, flipping the thin disks onto the hot grill. To make an excellent lefse was a virtue we all yearned for. Political and religious differences were forgotten. Guilt over leaving Iowa melted right along with the butter.

I always hated visiting Calmar, but I always craved lefse. Grandma’s house was an unwanted destination, claustrophobic and full of expired food. I begged to stay with my Uncle Luther when we visited. But the lefse was never expired. Never overwhelming. It was always sweet and kind. Everyone made it; everyone ate it.

We had lefse at my uncle’s wedding. We had lefse at Grandma’s Christmases, too. The last time Grandma and Grandpa visited Seattle, they brought a lefse grill. Grandma convinced mom to buy the special pastry cloth and the flipping-stick. Grandpa sat in the green recliner we got him just for that trip while we filled the kitchen with flour, sugar and potatoes. At Grandpa’s funeral, we had lefse. I don’t think I ate any. Maybe I wasn’t ready for the memories that buttery-sweet Norwegian tortilla would bring.

In Calmar, we’ve been getting rid of garbage bags full of junk for the past week. My aunts and uncles have thrown out moldy puzzles, age-old medicine, clothes full of moth balls. Grandma rides back to her house and asks, “Where did everything go?” In her new kitchen in an assisted living building, she makes lefse. It tugs at my gut at first, and then somewhere deeper. Lefse is the Norwegian roots we’ve all but forgotten.

– Hannah B.

Seaweed Soup

My parents used to fight a lot. They fought over who did or didn’t lock the door at our family restaurant. They fought about whether the chairs had been arranged the right way. But when it came to dinner, all the fighting ceased. We often did not talk to each other when we ate dinner; the only noise came from the TV. Silently, my parents shared their love for one another by putting food in each other’s bowls of rice. When ‘I love you’ was hard to say, my mother would put a piece of beef in my father’s bowl. Sometimes, my father would put in my mother’s bowl a boiled enoki mushroom.

If my mom and I had been fighting, I’d gently twirl my chopstick to tangle the strands of seaweed together before placing it in my mother’s bowl to let her know I was sorry. My mother and I did not fight often until she whisked the family away into a new life in Seattle. The spacious home we lived in before was gone, and the differences between my mother and I were becoming more obvious. She grew up in China, and I was growing up in the United States. Neither of us felt we understood each other, and I never made the effort to understand that the sixteen hours my mother worked each day had all been for me. I would often yell at her for refusing to accept me for who I was while actively refusing to acknowledge the Chinese traditions that she lived by. I preached empathy and kindness towards others but could not be bothered to be empathetic to my mother’s viewpoint as a Chinese mother in a society speaking only English.

Some days, there would be a bowl of seaweed soup on the table as a side dish. It was my favorite, aside from pork bone soup. When there were leftovers after dinner, I’d drink bowls of it, feeling the soup warm all sides of my belly while washing away the dry feeling of rice I had just eaten. Sometimes I would wait until everyone was asleep just so I could have another bowl of seaweed soup. It had just the right balance of saltiness and warmth to comfort me on a cold day. Though seaweed soup takes less than an hour to make, it showed up on the table only sporadically. The soup is healthy and known to lower blood pressure, but my mom did not make it often because of my low blood pressure.

The soups that my mother strenuously labored over for hours, adding expensive ingredients like birds nest and sea cucumber, were her only way of showing how much she loved me when I refused to listen. The seaweed that I placed in her bowl was my only way of telling her I was sorry when I was too embarrassed to say it myself. Food was what brought the family together when we had no other way to show our love for one another.

– Judy W.

***

As a Filipino, it is almost customary that our shelves have cans upon cans of Filipino sardines, corned beef, Vienna sausages, and Spam. Also, as a lazy male, I am determined to make fasts form the cheapest ingredients. That is how I spent my afternoon.

While heating up a pan, I cut the Spam into thin slices and put those in a bowl. Then I diced the Vienna sausages and put them in another bowl. From my fridge, I took several eggs and cracked them in a bowl. After beating the eggs, I added some salt, pepper and some spices I found in the shelf. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but when my family makes Spam they sort of marinate the slices in egg. After putting oil on the pan, I cooked the Spam until they were dark. The layer of egg stuck to the slices. While cooking them, I would sprinkle some more pepper just because. Then came the corned beef. Nothing special was done there. I just put it in the pan and stirred it around. Once the corned beef was done, I put it in a bowl, but left some in a separate place. After that, I made an omelet of sorts. I poured the Vienna sausages in the egg and mixed it well. Then I poured the mixture onto the pan. While I was at it, I added some cheese. Before folding the eggs, I took the spare corned beef and spread it across the top. All that was left was the sardines. There’s a little meal my family makes with sardines. I don’t remember it anymore, but I remember that it was supposed to have onions and garlic, add water and oil, crack some eggs into it and then add at least two cans of sardines in tomato sauce.

As I looked at my work, I felt very proud. Until I realized that I had to wash the dishes.

– Joshua I.

***

Hot, moist air out in the field. Under the sun, a familiar figure bent down caring for her crops. Every piece of food we ate was full of her love and care. Her sweat planted every potato, every carrot. The grandmother she loved and missed, reminding herself of the memories with every bite of pickled radish. The crunch sound resembles the fresh smile on her aged face; salty sweet was her vibe. Yellow, golden slices of carrots and the time we bonded to make seasoned vegetables can only be remembered from old-time pictures and bits of salted carrots.

– Ling C.

***

My dad is so picky when it comes to food. “It has to be an awe in your mouth,” I translated as I interviewed him. As we continued on, he talked me back to when he was a kid—poor, with literally nothing but a pair of pants he wore every day to everything. Somehow, I realized the pain my dad went through as he told me that a potato was like a perfectly baked chicken to him. My father, a man full of anger and pride, teared up as he told me “with the potato I dug up, I shared with my family of 9, and that was our best meal I ever had, even to this day.” With that, I teared up realizing how much he has worked and sacrificed for me. And we ended our conversation there as I cleaned up and he went upstairs like usual.

– Thien N.

***

Food Memory

Ever since I was a little child, my mom, my sister and I make lots of Christmas cookies. My favourite ones are Vanillekipferl and the recipe is really easy. But the actual cookie is so delicious that nobody would think of it as an easy dessert. The butter gives it this creamy and tasteful note and the grounded hazelnuts that slightly crunchy texture. The flour adds the softness to the Kipferl. So when you try one, it will melt in your mouth as soon as it starts to break into little crumbs. The sweetness comes from the powder sugar, which has to be powdered to make the cookie so soft. The taste reminds me of a relaxing Christmas time, time with my family, eating the cookies in front of the homemade advent wreath, my dad lying on the couch, the book with the Christmas stories in his hand, reading in a calm voice. My sister and I would cuddle with our mom and drink Punsch, which my mom made. It also reminds me of Christmas Eve. Waiting for the bell to ring, to signal that everything is prepared and we can come in. My sister and I would run into the living room and stop in front of the tree, full of awe of its beauty. We would wait until my grandparents made their way to us from the room we had waited in, in a slower pace with a big grin on their lips. Then we would sing “Stille Nacht” together and wish everyone Happy Christmas. My sister and I would fall to the ground, grab as many presents as possible, and hand our family their presents as fast as possible, so we can start ripping open ours, with sparkling eyes and joy in our hearts. Meanwhile, my family would sit together, talking, eating Vanillekipferl, and smiling with love in their eyes at us, every time we run to them to show them our presents. After unpacking everything, we would join them eating the cookies, while we are waiting for our parents to prepare the raclet, open all the jars and put them on the table.

Another memory would be a baking day with my mom and my sister. My sister and I would get something to stand on, to see on the counter; my mom would measure the soft butter, the powdered sugar, the crunchy hazelnuts and the fluffy flour. Then she would put everything in a bowl and let us try to stir it. Now I am able to make my own dough, but when I was younger I wasn’t strong enough so my mom had to make it. Then the dough has to rest for a while and we would drink a cup of tea, talking and cuddling with my mom. When the dough had settled long enough my mom would separate it into two pieces, one for each of us, and then my sister and I would start forming the Kipferl and my mom would make them smaller and reform them every time we looked away so they would look good enough to serve to guests. My mom told me years later that I now make prettier Kipferl than her. “The student gets better than the teacher,” she once said with a smile on her face.

Because the dough doesn’t contain raw eggs I normally ate a lot of the dough, when my mom wasn’t watching. Then they had to bake for a short time in the oven. My sister and I would run nearly every minute to the oven to see if the cookies were already gone, or sit in front of the oven until our mom would drag us away to get some tea and relax in front of the advent wreath. My mom would pull the cookies out of the oven when they were still soft, because they will “bake” for a short time after they are out of the oven. I still only would eat our Kipferl and never buy them, because ours are soft and melt on the tongue, unlike the crunchy ones from everyone else. The smell and taste mean a calm family day at home, baking with my family, feeling safe at home, and this special Christmas feeling to me.

Recipe:

280g flour

210g butter

100g grounded hazelnuts

70g powdered sugar

Dr. Oetker Vanilllasugar

 

Put everything into a bowl and knead it to a dough. Form a big ball and let it rest for several minutes. Make 3 inch thick rolls out of it. Cut small pieces of it and form a Kipferl. Put it into an preheated oven at 355°F. Take it out when they are still soft because they will “bake” a little bit longer after they are out. The tips shouldn’t be brown. Mix powdered sugar with vanilla sugar in a small bowl. Turn the still hot cookies in the sugar mixture, so the sugar sticks to it. Be careful to don’t break them.

– Natalie C.

Natalie C.’s Vanillekipferl

 

Making Writing Their Own: 8th Graders and Zines

By Corinne Manning, WITS Writer-in-Residence

Something I love about teaching for WITS is the encouragement to roll with the punches. At the beginning of a teaching residency, you might have a defined schedule, a plan with a classroom teacher, and a curriculum, built shiny, and ready to go. Anyone who has worked with youth, or who has even just worked as a teacher knows that all the careful planning can—will—change instantly. There some changes at the school I worked at this year, but the nature of the WITS program is to find innovative and creative ways to help students fall in love with writing, so I had everything I needed to embrace that change.

But sometimes, even writing super exciting and awesome stories, poems, and memoir gets old when you are at an age where you aren’t quite sure why you like something, when you haven’t had a chance to really define for yourself why you like doing it. In 8th grade, that pinnacle of adolescent muck, you are constantly getting told what to do and maybe you’ve heard all the reasons why you are told to do something a certain way, but… whatever—it just doesn’t make sense yet.

I’ve found power in defining writing for myself, and finding ways to continue to make it mine and useful. Growing up, I wrote stories and poems and put them into books that I would copy and give to other people. It wasn’t until I went to college that I learned I was making zines. During that time of making my own books I found two things that I loved: writing and bookmaking; and I got the chance to make each of them my own.

So, instead of doing Reader’s Theater with the 8th grade, I switched up my curriculum and decided to introduce them to zines.

“How To Make a Hamburger” by Parker, 8th grade

Zines are self published magazines that are made using whatever you have on hand. They have a cut and paste look to them, as they are most often made using a photocopier. The print runs are small, so only a few are made at a time, and they’re made to express something, not for profit.

The energy of zines is empowering. This form has been used again and again through the ages, often with the edict: if they won’t publish us, we’ll publish ourselves. Zines have found form in publications for protests, Sci-Fi and dystopian narratives, comics, and most recently, through young women who defined for themselves what it means to be a girl or grrrl.

“I don’t have a computer at home,” some of the students would say, trying to get out of the project. And every time I told them that they didn’t need a computer, that everything they needed they had in school, they’d look at me like I was crazy. Many of them didn’t seem to know what a photocopier was, and I had to emphasize again and again in a crochety-aging-hipsters manner: Get the authentic experience and make this on a photocopier, not a scanner or printer.

A zine, of course, can be made on anything you want, and in the future, they can totally make their zines at home using their printer and scanner if they have one. But it sure looks cooler from a photocopier.

Some zines by Catharine Blaine 8th graders

How can zines be applied to creative writing?

I had the chance to work with these particular students for two years and I knew their writing, they’d written in every genre of fiction, written poems, even came up with creative definitions of fiction, so I trusted that they knew what they were doing. But all this work I’ve done with them wasn’t going to amount to much unless I gave them the chance to see how to apply creative writing on their own terms. I wanted writing, the power of it, to feel immediately useful to them.

Before they got into their final project, the Per-Zine (stands for personal zine, which can be about anything that’s personal to you) they made zines about their favorite things and zines that explained how to do something: making hamburgers, waking up on a Monday, or even making a your younger sibling cry.

How to Survive the Pre-High School Years, by Luna, 8th grade

How to Survive the Pre-High School Years, by Luna, 8th grade

Perzines tend to have an opinion even if its about something simple, like the things that make you happy, or the way you’ve found to survive the pre-high school years. It’s yours.

Students found clever ways to articulate their feelings about their thoughts, God, or their frustration with stereotypes.

Gotta Problem? Blame Science. By Elizabeth, 8th grade

Gotta Problem? Blame Science. By Elizabeth, 8th grade

All writers know that the game changes when you introduce the idea of making something public. But it’s even more thrilling when the rules change: when you decide that something is ready to be published, when it’s your finger hovering over that green button on the photo copier, when you are the one that’s decided that what you have to say is valuable and needs to be heard. It’s true that they’ll grow up and many of their opinions will change, but the day they sat in class and created a zine to share, what went through their minds when they were bored are documents of who they were at a time, and are articulations of what many of us, even as adults, are still feeling. Through creating zines, students connected with one another, whether it was teaching each other how to photocopy, or finding something they related to in the work of another student. They have everything they need to make writing their own—not a bad skill to bring with you into high school, or maybe the rest of your life as a writer.

This website was a wonderful resource and includes a template for making a quarter page zine line the ones by Catharine Blaine students.

Story Problems: Learning Narrative through Pictures

By Greg Stump, WITS Writer-in-Residence

Comic by Maya, a 1st grade student at Broadview-Thomson K-8 School.

As a teaching artist who helps students of all ages learn to make comics, I’m often fascinated by how a single lesson or exercise can be just as useful for the very young as it is for teens and adults. Short comic strip stories, humble though they may be, seem to be especially effective in teaching story structure to anyone. This is because all parts of the story (introducing a character in a setting; throwing a conflict/problem or disruptive event into the scenario; heightening the drama/tension; and resolving the matter as the character is restored/transformed) are not just visible, but adjacent to each other as well. In a comic, we can see all at once how the story ends and begins, or we can read it piecemeal or in reverse order — unlike text narratives, which are inflexibly linear, or movies, which can only show us one part of the story at a time.

Anyone who spends time with young children knows that they can tell stories even before they’re able to write them down, and this is never more evident to me than when teaching them comics. As a WITS writer-in-residence this year, I was very happy to get to teach the first graders at Broadview-Thomson, in part because it’s so much fun to see what little kids (who are still learning how to write) will come up with when asked to draw out their stories. The comic you see here, drawn by a first grader named Maya in Jeanne Medalia’s class, is a great example of how a simple six-panel comic can demonstrate both a solid grasp of narrative structure, and a delightful imagination to boot.

As the story begins in the first panel, our butterfly protagonist leisurely flaps past a flower. Suddenly, disaster: the butterfly collides into a tree (the “disruptive event”) in the second scene. The “rising action” in panels three and four show our hero laid out on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a hospital bed, where it lies miserable and injured. Fortunately, a nurse mends the butterfly’s damaged wing, and the comic ends much as it begins — with the butterfly in flight, only now with relief after having gone through a dramatic ordeal.

Again, this is a simple exercise, but the use of a vertical six-panel grid to tell a story in pictures can be quite powerful in getting kids — or anyone, really — to see, quite literally, that what makes a story engaging is how it introduces and resolves problems. And when assigned to students as young and creative as Maya, it leads to work that is as charming as it is instructive.