High School Poetry Slam

On April 1st, we held our first annual poetry slam here at Nanjing Senior High School. Participating were 35 students from three grade levels--all of our American Program Chinese students, plus our visiting German students. After a month of preparation, the evening event was held in the lecture hall, to great success. Cash prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place were given, along with four honorable mentions, and the slam was even filmed. Fellow teachers, Simeon Campbell and Katherine Marie Priddy also helped organize and run the event, for which I am very grateful, and some of our other teachers, Gerry, Reuben, Ollie, and Lillian were our volunteer judges.

Since many of our Chinese students hadn't had much exposure to poetry slams, or to poetry, for that matter, the entire month before the event was spent studying poems. Though my junior AP English class had been reading a few poems, here and there, since the beginning of the school year, mostly as supplementary material to other literature, and had even read Shakespeare, we really needed to delve into mechanics and modern style. I also did a poetry unit review with my senior AP English class. This involved the reading and study of many poems, lessons in figurative language, short poetry videos and PPTs, writing workshops, outdoor writing exercises, and the poetry slam documentary, Louder Than A Bomb, which the students greatly enjoyed. Students wrote their own poems, workshopped them with their peers, revised them, workshopped them with me, and revised them again. We discussed the performance aspect of a poetry slam, and students practiced their poems aloud, both at home and in front of their peers, even doing a rehearsal run in the lecture hall the afternoon before the slam. Though they were all nervous about the slam that evening, they did well. And they had created some wonderful poems!

Here are some photos:

Cool poetry slam posters, designed by fellow teacher, Kate

Poetry slam judges: Gerry, Reuben, Ollie, and Lillian

Poetry slam in full swing

Winners, from left to right: Jasmine (HM); Claire (HM); Andy (HM);
Tom (HM); Shimmer (3rd); Chen (2nd); Andrew (1st)

Andrew won first place with his poem, "Pretentious Pimples", a piece that was not only brave, but cleverly structured as a conversation with his acne, and had a strong delivery. Chen won second place with "Homeless Dog", a persona piece, and Shimmer took third place with the confessional poem, "Her". All students, whether winners, honorable mentions, or not, did a fantastic job with their poems, and showed a lot of courage in reading their work in front of an audience--a first, for many. This helped build confidence, as many of the students expressed afterward.

All in all, our poetry slam was not only fun, but made a deep impression on the students. As one said, "Writing a poem is not as easy as I used to think. I had to modify the lines again and again, and read them aloud to seek the best voice to express them. It is funny--I earned award money in the poetry slam. It was the first time I earned money through my own effort". Another student said, "After this poetry slam, it seems that everything in life can be the subjects of poems. The matter is, what do I pay attention to? I have started observing life more clearly and carefully, and I've found a lot of beauty which I never paid attention to before."

As a teacher, I can't ask for more than that...

The Prodigal Poet Returns

Sooo...I've been a very bad blogger. Seven months have passed since I last updated. What happened? Well, I went through a sort-of devastating loss--of my own making--and I'm just now getting back to the poetry (and blogging!) life. While in Rome last summer, I dropped my external hard drive, which held ALL of my writing, onto the tile floor of our apartment, and it broke. No one, not even the so-called "experts", have been able to retrieve the data. I had no backup. That's right, I was stupid, stupid, stupid. See, before I left for my summer travel to Scotland, Italy, and Turkey, I was busy and distracted, and though the thought occurred to me to "back that shit up", I never did.

When I say ALL my writing was on my external hard drive, I do mean ALL of it: my poetry manuscript, which I'd been working on for four years, and which was getting close to completion; all my poems under construction; all completed poems not part of the manuscript; all my publishing contacts, correspondence, and submission records; and the journal I'd been keeping for four years. In addition, I lost all the photos I had taken in Scotland, and half of the ones I took in Italy. I lost all my teaching materials--syllabi, course outlines, student records, resources, and more. Though I've spent the past seven months rebuilding all my teaching materials (and backing them up regularly!), I'm afraid I'll never get the creative writing or photos back. The IT shop I use here, after working on my external hard drive for two months, was unable to do anything, so they sent it off to the "experts" in Nanjing, who kept it for another month, and came up empty-handed, as well. Some business about needing an exact copy of the disc used in the external hard drive to copy the material to. I don't know...if the FBI can retrieve data off burnt, crushed, drowned hard drives, why can't someone pull some poems and photos off mine? I've still got the drive, and I'm going to bring it to my crack-IT guy/nephew in the U.S. when I go back next winter for a visit. He may not be able to do anything, either, but at least there's still a glimmer of hope.

In the meantime, I've been dealing with a lot of anger over the whole thing. I was pretty mad at the universe for DOING THIS TO ME, but really, I was angry with myself for dropping the drive (I'm such a klutz--always have been), and for not backing up my material in the first place. In fact, I was so disgusted with the whole thing that I just stopped writing. Yes, I have refused to write for seven months. Muse appears, and I turn her away, which is probably some sort of sacrilege, for which I'll probably be punished later, in some other horrifying turn of events. Instead, I turned my creative attentions in other directions--I concentrated on my photography, built a Facebook bohemian community page (almost 6,000 followers, which you can check out, here), went traveling and adventuring, etc. Things have been okay. But there has been a nagging feeling all along, that I need to get on with my writing, get over the anger, and start listening to the muse again.

Poetry doesn't want to leave me alone--it's made that quite clear. Whether it's waking me in the middle of the night with lines begging to be written, or sending me requests for material from editors, or asking me to judge a kids' poetry competition, or surprising me with an acceptance from a long-forgotten submission, or requesting that I write reviews for other poets, or having me help organize a poetry slam at my school (all of which have happened these past seven months), poetry has not given up on me, no matter how much I've shunned it. So, it's time to get back on with it, and start rebuilding my portfolio. I'm looking at it this way: that the loss of the manuscript and other work is an opportunity to start over, and create something even better this time. I've had my hissy fit, given poetry the silent treatment, and now I'm ready to forgive myself. As Hugh White said, "When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power". 

Wish me luck. I'm going to back up all my material now... 

Introduction

I thought I'd start a poetry blog, not only to track my publications and upcoming chapbook release, but to create a space where I could share poems and craft-related business, and possibly connect with others in the field.  I've been writing poetry seriously for about fifteen years (yes, I still learn something new everyday!), and a lot of my prior publications were in print, in such places as Medicinal Purposes, Red Owl, Sahara, Candlelight Poetry Journal, Timber Creek Review, and Sierra Nevada Review, among others (there's a link list of my current online publications here on the blog).  I've done the Open Mic circuit, and given many other public readings, and admittedly, this is not an aspect of being a poet that I particularly enjoy, but I do it, because I think it's important to get the words out there.

A little about me, personally:  I was born in Lowell, Massachusetts (that's right~Kerouac's hometown), and later lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, Colorado, California, and Florida.  Internationally, I've lived in Italy, Peru, and now China.  Like many writers and poets, I've held a number of weird jobs:  forklift operator, museum attendant, paralegal, pizza delivery driver, real estate agent, secretary, landscaper, human services, and now, teacher.  Crazy, right?  But as a single mom, I had to make ends meet, so I worked whatever job was available, and I worked hard, attending college at the same time, eventually receiving my MFA in Poetry in 2008.  With my girls now grown, I've embarked on the dream of a lifetime, and spend my time traveling, teaching, writing, and taking photographs.  Luckily, I have my fiancé (a.k.a. best friend, cheerleader, partner-in-crime), Gerard, along for the ride.  Life is just downright peachy.

Anyway, here's a start.  Let's see how long I can keep this up. 

Cheers,

Lauren