Thirty students from all the PPS high schools rocked the Mission Theater during the first city-wide slam poetry competition, Verselandia! Three students from each school (who had won their school’s playoffs) had three minutes each to perform an original poem. Names were drawn at random from a fishbowl and a panel of five judges held up scorecards after each performance.

This was no poetry reading. With a rowdy crowd, an energetic host (the fantastic Anis Mojgani, whose performances on YouTube can bring people to tears), and students with impressive stage presence, it was an entertaining evening. But beyond that, the amount of heart each poet put into their work–including every messy emotion a person can feel–often moved the audience to their feet. There were tales of roller derby bravery, explanations of the perks of dating a nerd, and one student even asked another student to prom.

After the first round, the fifteen students with the highest scores performed a second piece. Then while the judges tallied the scores, Anis Mojgani performed two poems. For all the performances, the audience listened in pin-drop silence, gasped, murmured in agreement, and burst into applause.

Finally, five winners were selected. The two runners-up received $250 gift cards to NorthFace and the three winners received iPads. (Thanks to our generous sponsors!) Congratulations to not only the five winners, but to every student who took the stage at the Mission and who participated in the school slams at Benson, Cleveland, Franklin, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Madison, Metropolitan Learning Center, Roosevelt, and Wilson high schools. We’re already looking forward to next year!

]]> http://witspdx.com/2012/05/07/verselandia/feed/ 0 http://witspdx.com/2012/01/26/wilson-students-read-at-annie-blooms-books/ http://witspdx.com/2012/01/26/wilson-students-read-at-annie-blooms-books/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:34:58 +0000 MaryR http://witspdx.com/?p=1611 Parents, friends, teachers and writers packed into Annie Bloom’s Books to see Wilson students read  poetry, prose, and drama written during the previous semester with a WITS writer-in-residence. The classes hosting a writer included Creative Writing, 3D Design, and US History. WITS writer Cindy Williams Gutierrez spoke of creating art from books and writing poems about them. Some of her students read poetry they had written in Spanish. Katie Schneider, the WITS writer in the history classes, shared a piece of work and a story about her own first reading. As always, the student’s pieces encompassed a full range of emotions, with audience members alternately murmuring in dismay and laughing aloud. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this reading!

To view our library, you can visit our profile at http://www.issuu.com/literary-arts.

by Robel Haile

I wanna tell you a story
Of myself
I’m a person who is hungry
Hungry with a big dream
Dream like the American dream
“The African Dream”
Peace, peace, and peace
My dreams are heading back to home
Heading back to the East
To the origin of Lucy and Selam
To the origin of culture and people
Where my ancestors grave
Where my umbilical cord is buried
To the Horn of Africa
Lakomenza, Abyssinia
Land of Habesha

I wanna tell you a story
Of myself
My life in foreign land
Where it seems a happy land
But it’s not like that
Not like my native land
What is wrong with me?
This is my home too
But I don’t call it home yet
It’s cold and dark
I look through the mirror
What is written on my face?
I see soul and faith
And I look through my colored skin
I see my heart is pumping
Blood that is mixed with
Mississippi and Blue Nile
But I can tell which is which
I look down to the bottom
I think about myself
How I look when I walk
I try to show no emotion
No weakness at all

I wanna tell you a story
Of myself
I’m in 97217
My people are back in Agergizat
That’s what I call home
If I started missing my people
Who are back home
Nostalgia would kill me
Right now my body is resting
Lost in the deepest part of the delightful night
My night and my dreams
Far far away…

Darkness
The orange I Wear
Shows no color.
I don’t know if He is
Alive or Dead
Out of state or In.
But what I do know is that I can’t Eat or Sleep.
I can’t Speak right
When he’s not Around.
Tasteless
The words I speak
Leave me incomplete.
The crystal clear speeches that usually seep out
Of my cave like mouth
Come jumbled, in a trance
Focusing
I can’t think straight
Or remember what I did this weekend.
I’ve been tweaking out but I know it’s not ADHD
I’ve been checked for that.
Chinese
I got a fortune and
It
Said
“A day of disappointment awaits.”
Garfield
You got to love him
He speaks the words of a true poet
“I HATE MONDAYS”

I hope Nate’s okay
Without him I am destroyed.
I’m incomplete
I love him
In brotherly way
Happiness
As I met him
Spring came early
He is most like me.
Family
The gracious professionalism of mother and father
Couldn’t have made a better creation
Mother and father of a bird in Distress
Always caresses me when I’m over
The dwindling of the threads called my mind
Leave me in a predicament
My lifelong quest
All in all he truly is my best friend
I hope he is okay
*Sorry Phelan

I found the picture in a magazine:
light poured into a silent hallway
from the many open, dusty doors
interrupting the shadows
on the doors across the hall.
As I carefully drew each shadow
the desolate dust became flooded with light,
and I wondered
how a photograph was so silent
that I could hear the water,
the wind,
the birds
and the fresh sun beyond the door.

Walking up to the corner of Ainsworth and MLK Avenue shows so many choices. Walgreens pharmacy, Safeway grocery, Starbucks coffee, and my favorite Popeye’s Cajun chicken and biscuits. One night I was in the mood for a catfish po’boy. I slapped on some headphones, because I find that it is the best way to find myself. On this short seven-block walk I like to think I am changing the world by what I am thinking. The next thing you know I’m at my favorite corner. I take two crosswalks to get to my destination. I am stopped by a man in dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes. He asks me for a dollar. I am usually generous in these situations: I open my wallet and hand him a Washington. He sees an opportunity. He asks for more. I am outraged. “Is that not enough?” I thought to myself. I walk away. I faintly hear “God bless.” I walk into my favorite Cajun establishment, take my order and my seat, and it hit me: He needed more, and I had more. Whether he was going to buy a bottle of water or a crack pipe, he needed more and I had more, but I didn’t give it to him.