2011-2012 WITS Digital Anthology

OUR KNOWLEDGE IS ALWAYSDEEPENING

2011-2012 WITS Digital Anthology

Our Knowledge is Always

Deepening

Contents

Writers in the Schools 4

Dear Reader • Mary Rechner, WITS Program Director 5

Peace • Awat Habibi, Wilson High School 6

Gray Clouds • Aurora Zauner, Alliance High School 7

What Did You Just Say? • Kinsey Wilson, Franklin High School 9

Heart Separated • Alicia Villa, Wilson High School 10

I Am Not • Alishanna Barney, Roosevelt High School 11

Verano y Invierno • Kari Offerdal, Wilson High School 12

The Lost Child • Jessica Combs, Wilson High School 13

To The Stars • Allan Coe, Lincoln High school 15

4

Writers in the SchoolsWriters-in-ResidenceAngela Allen, Lorraine Bahr, Carmen Bernier-Grand, Elyse Fenton, Nicole Georges, Amanda Gersh, Cindy Williams Gutierrez, Emily Harris, Hunt Holman, John Isaacson, Sara Jaffe, Amy Minato, S. Renee Mitchell, Laura Moulton, Alexis Nelson, Mark Pomeroy, Ismet Prcic, Donna Prinzmetal, Katie Schneider, Devan Schwartz, Arnold Seong, Matthew B. Zrebski

Visiting AuthorsChimamanda Adichie, Tom Brokaw, Heidi Durrow, J. Hill, Anis Mojgani, Abraham Verghese

Participating TeachersBarbara Berger, Matt Boyer, Gene Brunak, Annelise Bulow, Mike Cullerton, Jaque Dixon, Stephanie D’Cruz, Anne Dierker, Jerry Eaton, Bianca Espinosa, Stefanie Goldbloom, Kelly Gomes, David Hillis, Cindy Irby, Melinda Johnston, Paige Knight, Tom Kane, Andy Kulak, Stephen Lambert, Dylan Leeman, Dave Mylet, Steve Naganuma, Marie Pearson, Arlie Peyton, Karen Polis, Michelle Potestio, Mary Rodeback, Alicia Smith, Kris Spurlock, Henise Telles-Ferriera, Erin Tillery, Dana Vigner, Virginia Warfield, Alice Weinstein, Amy Wright, Tracey Wyatt

WITS LiaisonsDave Mylet, Eric Levine, Brady Bennon, Linda Campillo, Sandra Childs, Mary Rodeback, Mike Cullerton, Tracey Wyatt, Matt Boyer, Paige Knight

Participating PrincipalsSue Brent, Petra Callin, Margaret Calvert, Carol Campbell, Peyton Chapman, Paul Cook, Shay James, Andrew Mason, A. J. Morrison, Vivian Orlen, Macarre Traynham, Charlene Williams

District LiaisonMelissa Goff

5

Dear Reader,

Like many of the adolescents we serve, Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools (WITS) program is changing rapidly. Our core residency program, begun in 1996 at Grant High School, continues to provide Portland public high schools with semester-long writing workshops taught by professional writers: poets, playwrights, journalists, fiction writers, memoirists, and graphic novelists who model the disciplined passion of a creative life and reinforce the importance of the writing process: creating new work, revising, editing, and publication. Each residency culminates in a celebratory student reading at independent bookstores, libraries, galleries, and cafes.

To help teens connect the importance of strong writing and creative thinking to the “real world,” we coordinate school visits by local and touring professional authors (Abraham Verghese, Chimamanda Adiche, and Tom Brokaw). Hundreds of students attend our lecture series over the course of the season and are provided free tickets, books, and transportation. At each lecture, 2,500 adults model a passion for reading and appreciating new ideas in an intergenerational environment.

Literary Arts brings The Moth, a popular storytelling troupe, to lead a weeklong school-based MothSHOP, which culminates in students telling stories to their peers. WITS collaborates with school librarians to host a city-wide teen poetry slam, “Verselandia!” WITS also offers one-day college writing workshops at several schools, pairing volunteer writing mentors with students to help them develop their college admissions essays. WITS provides extensive logistical support for all of these activities, as underfunded schools do not otherwise have the administrative capacity to take advantage of these opportunities.

If you would like to join this team that makes our work with youth so successful, please make a donation to Writers in the Schools at http://www.literary-arts.org/product/donate/.

Mary RechnerWriters in the Schools Program Director

6

PeaceAWat Habibi, Wilson High school

Someone helpingFeeding the hungry

Standing up for someone elseHappy

No guns No bombs

No intentional deathPeace

7

Gray CloudsAurora Zauner, Alliance High School

Gray clouds they surround me now I try to think about the day Without what I need I don’t know I look around and see only a steel gray The rain surrounds me at all times I try not to get soaked The drops are the size of dimes I hear the frogs as they croak The rain has stopped now I need the rain to wash away the blood Pine trees are covered in things I don’t want to know The ground is covered in a flood of deep red blood There is a body on the ground I don’t know where it is from In the distance I hear the hounds Their barks are like a bass drum I see the damage I have done I have to run far away The body looks like a mutilated drone I have to get to the highway

8

I look for a clear path without deep red blood I see no way around the sticky blood

The clouds are white now I must get to the empty highway I look back and see on the ground, a mutilated drone I have to get away.

9

What Did You Just Say?Kinsey Wilson, Franklin High School

Fuck! Bitch! Bastard! Shit! All of those words are pretty much meaningless in this culture. People will cuss and swear just because they have dropped their pencil on the ground. If you were to ask someone what these words actually mean, you most likely wouldn’t get an answer because the truth is: they don’t know. They just think it is cool to scream out obscenities and they like to take things to the extreme. I mean, where did anyone come up with the fact that dork means a whale penis? Because the dictionary says nothing about a whale in the definition of “dork.” I have never wanted to cuss. I’ve seen way too many people do it and the thing is, swearing doesn’t make you look cool, but instead makes you look dumb. Because I heard these words come out of people’s mouths, I decided I wouldn’t follow the trend. It isn’t much of one, though, but instead it has created a large, globally known clan of dumb and dumbers. I was changed by these words before I even came to the age where I could decide whether or not I’d use them. They irked and annoyed me so much that I decided not to say them myself. And, most importantly, these words made me make sure my point was heard: that I don’t welcome, but rather frown upon words like these.

10

Dedicated to Elena, mi hermana

Scene starts with a child sitting on a loveseat with a coffee table parallel to the loveseat with an office chair facing the couch. In the chair sits a woman of about fifty-seven years, with a notepad and pen. The child is drawing as she talks with the woman.

I like my mom and my dad. I never see my dad because I live with my mom. My dad lives in Colorado. My dad and my mom can’t be around each other without yelling. [She starts drawing a heart separated by a jagged line.] My dad wants me to come live with him, and tries to convince me to move, every time I see him. I hear him talking to my mom in bad ways, and I don’t like it. He always seems sad when I’m around and that makes me sad. [Tears shimmer in her eyes but she wipes them away.] I don’t like being sad, so I prefer staying with my mom. I remember my mom and dad saying they were still going to be friends when they told me they were going to get a divorce, but right now it doesn’t look like that’s ever going to happen.

Stage fades to black.

Heart SeparatedAlicia Villa, Wilson High School

11

I am not a social butterfly.I am not perfect.I am not for change.I am not motherless, but fatherless.I am not from money.I am not a smoker or a drinker.I am not kind to everybody I meet.I am not a brainiac.I am not from a worry-free past.I am not a fan of the dark.I am not care-free.

I Am NotAlishanna Barney, Roosevelt High school

12

Verano y InviernoKari Offerdal, Wilson High School

El ritual de la naturaleza,Siempre cambiando y transformando, así con nosotros.Nunca el mismo pero siempre inevitable, un ritual.Cuando una estación llega, esperamos a la otra,Nunca satisfechos con el presente.Y así el tiempo pasa, y la vida sigue.

In the ritual of natureAlways changing and transforming, it’s like that with us.Never the same but always inevitable, a ritualWhen a season arrives, we wait for the other,Never satisfied with the presentAnd so time passes, and life goes on.

13

The Lost ChildJessica Combs, Wilson High School

A girl is sitting in a chair speaking to her counselor. She is shaking because she has never revealed to anyone what she was about to tell her counselor.

It was five years ago. I knew my mom was on drugs, but she didn’t know I knew. She tried to hide it from me. For years I would sit outside her door and smell the smoke from the cocaine she was cooking. From time to time I would jump when I heard her cough. I would sit there until I was tired of hearing her choke. Then I would crawl, crying to my bed…until that day…that day the cops knocked on our door looking for her… I had never thought that her drug abuse would harm our family. She always seemed normal during the few hours that she wasn’t locked behind those doors. Other than that the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary is when she would come home naked with a hangover…but that day the cops came knocking…I remembered…she tried to run out the back door. The cops knocked down the door. I sat there screaming for mom to come back. [The girl sits, shaking and moving her sweaty palms from side to side.] But she wouldn’t listen. They took her away in handcuffs and then child services took me away. [The girl can barely talk through her sobs. Tears begin to flow down her cheeks.] They took me to foster care…I hated that house. I had no friends and couldn’t trust anyone. I tried to hang around the other kids, but there was no one like me. So I started isolating myself. I didn’t go to school…I was smart and there was no point.

14

I had lost my passion for learning. I wanted the other kids to protect me. I didn’t like being alone. I was afraid he would hurt me—he being my stepdad, my foster dad—and he did, from the first day I arrived. I tried crying out but no one would listen…and each time he raped me I would cut myself….

15

To The StarsAllan Coe, Lincoln High School

Our knowledge is always deepening, we know more and more each day. We renounced our geocentric ways long ago; however, our faith is still misplaced in higher powers. The brain has allowed us to explain things we never thought possible: we discovered new stars, new galaxies, new universes. Our advancements have put a man on the moon, our mind has taken us beyond. Some complain that our mind has led us to dream, to act far from our home. They say our efforts should be focused here on earth—fighting injustice, poverty and corruption, some of our worst mistakes—in reality our world has become too corrupt to save. The evil we have unleashed here must be left behind if we as a species are to survive. Humans will go to the stars not because we choose to, but because we have to. It is in our nature to explore. When we were little we left Africa, we crossed continents, and finally, on our twenty-fifth birthday we leave home to cross the stars. We will have to leave people behind. For them life will continue, forever suffering here on Earth. But, for those fortunate enough to look back at Earth as they leave, there will be everlasting beauty and promise. I know I will not live long enough to see the day that we set foot on another planet. Few of us will. But in the end we will get there, all of us, to the stars.

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