Teachers & Writers Collaborative
New York is a roller coaster. Hold on tight.
—Pury S., 14
Hum along to the song we all know:
“Stand clear of the closing doors.”
—Jarei M., 17
Early in June, at a poetry workshop in northern Manhattan’s Washington Heights, a group of young New Yorkers including Pury S. and Jarei M. became the first participants in Teachers & Writers Collaborative’s new project, A Poem as Big as the City. The initiative brings professional writers to community sites and schools to lead young people in writing poetry about growing up in New York City. T&W will feature the best poetry from these workshops in a book and at public readings by the youth poets and well-known New York writers.
T&W held the first A Poem as Big as the City workshops in partnership with Groundswell, a Brooklyn-based public arts organization commissioned by the Mayor’s Office to create a mural for a pedestrian tunnel in Washington Heights. Belle Benfield, the Groundswell artist leading the youth team creating the mural, decided that poetry would play a prominent role.
“There was no set theme for the mural, so I chose to use poetry as a way to open the team and the community to thinking about New York City and their neighborhood in a lyrical, poetic way so that we could generate interesting imagery for the mural that moved beyond the usual rainbows and peace signs that are found in murals,” Benfield said.
Benfield worked closely with T&W writers Sandra Maria Esteves and Jane LeCroy, both Washington Heights-based poets, who led workshops to develop themes central to the mural project and to A Poem as Big as the City.
“The Poem project is an exercise in both writing and community. It’s a large conversation with a large group of people. It’s filled with possibility, spontaneity, and surprise—a united piece made of hundreds of voices,” LeCroy said. “Like the mural project, the Poem has the potential to bring people together in an empowering way.”
The workshop in Washington Heights was the first of a series of summer workshops held in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. T&W writers worked with young people at sites including Historic Richmond Town, the Staten Island Museum, and more than a dozen public library branches. Sandra Payne, assistant director for education outreach at the New York Public Library, helped coordinate the partnership between T&W and the NYPL.
“The name of the project exudes the enthusiasm, the optimism, the possibilities of coming together as one New York City,” Payne said. “Young people have few opportunities to participate in citywide ventures that allow them to shine as thoughtful and creative individuals. It is not often that NYPL is involved with a citywide project that involves museums, schools, and community arts programs.”
T&W writer Melanie Maria Goodreaux developed an initial curriculum for the summer workshops for A Poem as Big as the City. The curriculum calls for the transformation of young people’s individual experiences into the poetic journey of a collective but singular character.
“The vision of the project requires that we see the Poem as a ‘character’ in and of itself,” Goodreaux said. “The Poem will be the main character. It will take on all the varied characteristics imagined by the young writers. The Poem will twist through New York City. It will run into a multitude of adventures and will thus be expressive of young people’s diverse cultural roots and their reflections on and assorted interpretations of the New York City experience.”
Goodreaux and T&W writers leading the initial workshops guided young people to emphasize the sensory details of their everyday experiences in the city’s neighborhoods. At a workshop at the New Utrecht Library Branch in Brooklyn, T&W writer Alisa Malinovich distributed one of her own poems as a model to help young people recognize the effect of emphasizing specific details in writing:
The Poem woke up to the sound of a neighbor’s feet
On creaking floorboards in a big red brick building
Just past Ocean Parkway on Cortelyou Road.
It got dressed to the rhythm of traffic
Rolling down East 9th Street, car horns beeping,
Stray dogs barking, an airplane headed for JFK overhead.
The Poem pushed an elevator button,
Walked its bike under a scaffolding,
Waved to the owner of a Russian specialty shop.
Malinovich’s poem also emphasizes transition, moving from the above excerpt to a bike ride through Prospect Park and a subway ride to Chinatown. This emphasis helps young people to recognize and explore the transitions that characterize daily life in the city.
In September, T&W will refine the project curriculum as needed ahead of fall workshops in schools and at the American Folk Art Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York Transit Museum, the Old Stone House, and other sites.
A Poem as Big as the City is made possible in part through the support of the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Barnes & Noble.
To make a donation in support of A Poem as Big as the City or to discuss sponsorship opportunities, please contact us at info@twc.org or 212-691-6590.
To bring A Poem as Big as the City to your organization or school, please contact T&W’s program director at workshops@twc.org or 212-691-6590.