PROVIDENCE – The back of the bus took on a whole new meaning last month for 25 local students, thanks to a citywide after-school project entitled Poetry Lives in Providence.
Middle school and high school aged patrons from 11 local schools, plus several home-schoolers, signed up in March for the Providence Public Library program.
For the next six weeks, they met at three PPL branch libraries, working with one of here local, published poetry educators – in Olneyville, with Christine Gardiner; in Smith Hill, with Kate Schapira; and in Mount Pleasant, with Orlando White.
Each group began by reading and discussing the various styles of poetry, then went on to learn techniques for improving their own work, which they shared with their peers and others in poetry readings at the three branches.
Their works include tales of travel, or waking up grumpy; imaginative “instructions” for a cat toy; the magical realism of an angel in the back yard; the gentle fantasy of a star in a jar; depression, angst and the search for love or identity; and philosophical efforts as “The Arrow of Life,” in which Calder Brown acknowledges that “in the end … fast or slow, it must fall.”
“What most impressed me was the enthusiasm that the students brought to the project,” said Christine Gardiner, Olneyville Branch poet educator. “The kids were passionate about their own work, supportive of their peers’ efforts and receptive to new concepts.”
Finally, 75 of the students’ poems were published in the Youth Poets Poetry Anthology that can be viewed online at www.provlib.org. Their works also are displayed at the three PPL branches where the program was held; at the Borders Bookstore at Providence Place mall; and, this month and last, on the backs of 21 R.I. Public Transit Authority buses.
“We are delighted that we can showcase poetry by some of the city’s talented young people,” said Karen Mensel, RIPTA’s director of marketing and communications.
The project had several goals. PPL Director Dale Thompson called it “just one example of how the Library is able to work innovatively to fund and deliver valuable literacy programs and services to Providence’s youth, particularly during the critical after-school hours.”
The educators gained a better understanding of how to teach poetry to inner-city teens, plus a chance to share the joy of the creative process, they told the PPL.
The students gained a better understanding of poetry and the creative process, plus a showcase for their works. “My son does a great deal of writing, but this program helped him to expand his creative thinking,” said Eleanor Kaplan, the mother of Smith Hill youth poetry project participant Aaron Kaplan. “Kate [Schapira] shared many new techniques for him to use to look beyond his normal writing process.”
And through readings and the bus displays, the project helped to promote literacy and the arts to the broader community. “It has been very inspiring to see how everyone has gotten something valuable from this effort,” said the PPL’s Candice Haster, who shared program coordinator honors with poet Tina Cane.
Poetry Lives was made possible by a $7,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sometimes it’s hard to write a poem if you haven’t got an idea,
It can be kind of like trying to put together a puzzle
when you haven’t got the pieces.
But you always get an idea sooner or later,
then you can write your poem.
Sometimes writing can be as slow and difficult as a turtle
trying to climb a stone wall.
You don’t always get there on the first try,
but eventually you will succeed.
Flannery Brown, Olneyville
The Providence Public Library is a 130-year-old private, nonprofit organization that provides free information resources, education and community services in Providence. It also operates the Statewide Reference Resource Center. Additional information on this spring’s youth poetry project and other PPL programs is available at www.provlib.org.
