NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

T&W Celebrates National Poetry Month with Elevator Poems

Fourteen years ago, the Academy of American Poets helped to inaugurate National Poetry Month. On April 1, 1996, President Bill Clinton released the following proclamation: “National Poetry Month offers us a welcome opportunity to celebrate not only the unsurpassed body of literature produced by our poets in the past, but also the vitality and diversity of voices reflected in the works of today’s American poetry . . . Their creativity and wealth of language enrich our culture and inspire a new generation of Americans to learn the power of reading and writing at its best.”

For four decades, T&W has worked to inspire new generations of American readers and writers. For the last several years, we have celebrated National Poetry Month by partnering with the Captivate Network to place student poems on elevator monitors throughout the New York City area. Two weeks ago, Captivate posted this year’s first poem, “My Pleasures” by Sabrina, a third-grader at PS77 in Manhattan:

I love horses stomping.
I love to slurp spaghetti.
I love the feeling of everything.
I think you know why.

With her simply stated lines, the “horses stomping,” the “slurp of spaghetti,” and that last line-”I think you know why”-you can almost feel Sabrina wink at this mysterious “you,” the source of her love for everything. It’s tempting to think that might be reading too much into a young poet’s words, but at T&W we take the words of young poets seriously!

This year’s Elevator Poems feature students at schools that have recently partnered with T&W in creative writing programs. In the coming months, as the school year winds down, T&W will publish tens of thousands of poems, stories, and personal essays by young people from across New York City.

Happy National Poetry Month! In a nod to “the vitality and diversity of voices reflected in the works of today’s American poetry,” we hope you’ll enjoy the following selected Elevator Poems written by students in T&W programs and appearing this April on the Captivate Network:

“Chinatown”
by Johnny, Grade 5, PS110M

Chinatown’s stomach is
like the biggest
grocery in town.

“Life of a Young Girl”
by Jennifer, Brooklyn Prep High School

The shriek of the bell
It’s time to go home
The smell of my mom
as I give her a hug

“Black and White in the Picture that Colors”
by Derrick, P369K

I am not scared
of anyone and if I run
fast enough
I will fly like hope.

T&W FELLOWSHIP

Our T&W Fellowship Experience

by Carla Ching and Charles Conley

You have heard from previous fellows about the beautiful offices with brightly colored walls here. Carla Ching’s is bright, bold red. Whether she’s madly sending out listings to publicize the 2020 Visions reading series, working on an article for Teachers & Writers magazine, or working on one of her plays, she feels a bit like Goldilocks who has crashed the three bears’ house and is sitting pretty in somebody else’s chair. But, as nobody has kicked her out yet, she’s quite happily writing and working here.

Charlie Conley has grown used to his back office as well, increasingly coming in on Saturdays and occasionally even Sundays to proceed with the writing he works on first thing every weekday morning. He likes his routines, and being a T&W Fellow has allowed him to create a routine that lets him feel productive both as a writer and as a contributor to the work of Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

For the most recent issue of Teachers & Writers, Carla wrote an in-depth article on Philadelphia Young Playwrights, traveling to Philly to attend their TA/Teacher retreat
and also interviewing current TAs (teaching artists) and collaborating teachers, former students (like Tony Award-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes), and staff to share the best practices of an incredible organization that brings playwriting to children all over Philadelphia, helping them to find their voices and express their greatest hopes. She learned much about effective partnerships and TA practice, but writing the article also reminded her of the power of theater and what an incredible tool it can be to inspire and problem solve about the world we are living in.

Charlie’s just finishing up his article, a profile of the Teaching Artist Training and Internship Program at New York City’s Community~Word Project. Sitting in on the thorough and inspirational training sessions has paid dividends not only in leading to the article, but also in Charlie’s own classroom practice as he works with T&W teaching artist David Stolerat Booker T. Washington Middle School in Harlem. This is his first public school residency of longer than a week, and in David’s capable hands Charlie is moving from classroom observer to co-teacher.

Carla and Charlie both have had the opportunity to observe teaching artists in the classroom and to sit in on the annual Teaching Artist Convening, co-hosted by T&W, Adirondack Center for Writing, and Just Buffalo Literary Center, sharing best practices with experienced teaching artists. These activities have helped Carla’s own teaching artist practice, which is the work she does to support her playwriting life and work that she sees as an extension of that life, a combination of her loves of teaching and writing.

Co-curating the 2020 Visions reading series allows Carla and Charlie to bring together writers who have been in teaching/learning situations with one another to talk about the writing process and how they’ve inspired each other. They were lucky enough to host the wonderful playwrights Chuck Mee, Nandita Shenoy, and Kyoung Park in January, who spoke in some detail about stealing from their favorite writers. This was followed by and event with Caribbean-American writers Nicole Sealey and Tiphanie Yanique in March to celebrate the release of Tiphanie’s first book, How to Escape From a Leper Colony. Most recently, they welcomed Phillip Lopate and his daughter Lily Lopate, who generously read and discussed how they influence each other.

For Carla, participating in all these activities has been extremely useful for another part of her creative life. She was recently named artistic director of the theater company 2g, and she has learned during her fellowship about building infrastructure, having a clear mission and direction, and increasing capacity. She will take these skills into her creative life as she expands the scope and vision of her theater company and helps provide a space for other artists to learn, innovate, and grow.

Charlie learned in January that he received a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, which he applied for at the beginning of his fellowship. He will use the money to study Spanish, travel in South America, and write between August and December of this year. Without the support of T&W, it would be much more difficult to plan this extensive trip and to prepare for the writing and research he will be doing during that time. He will also come back to the States confident that with the new skills he’s developed as a fellow, he will have a wider range of employment opportunities available to him, whether as a teaching artist or working at a non-profit or literary organization.

Carla has been working on her play Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness, and T&W has been kind enough to donate the rehearsal space for a workshop with Ma-Yi Theater Company in May 2010, which will enable her to do the work that she needs to do to get the play on its feet with actors in the room. Without the time and space to work on it properly here at T&W, the play would not get done.

This is a remarkable fellowship, and Carla and Charlie both hope that others are able to have the experience they’ve had, because it enables a young artist the chance to work on their writing and develop an invaluable skill set to take with them into the world.

Information about the 2010-2011 T&W Fellowship program will be available on the T&W website after June 1: www.twc.org/about/tw-fellowship.

BECHTEL PRIZE

2010 Bechtel Prize Deadline: June 30!

Wednesday, June 30, at 5:00 PM (Eastern) is the submission deadline for the 2010 Bechtel Prize, awarded by Teachers & Writers Collaborative in recognition of an outstanding article about the teaching and/or practice of creative writing. The 2010 Bechtel Prize will be judged by essayist, novelist, poet, and critic Phillip Lopate.

The essay selected to receive the Bechtel Prize appears in Teachers & Writers magazine and on the T&W website, and the author receives a $1,000 honorarium. Honoraria totaling $500 are shared by the authors of entries selected as finalists for the prize, which may also be published in Teachers & Writers.

Possible topics for Bechtel Prize submissions include contemporary issues in classroom teaching, innovative approaches to teaching literary forms and genres, and the intersection between literature and imaginative writing. The previous winners of the Bechtel Prize can be found at
www.twc.org/publications/bechtel-prize/bechtel-prize-winners

Selection criteria for the Bechtel Prize include the essay’s relevance and appropriateness for readers of
Teachers & Writers magazine, most of whom teach at the elementary, secondary, or postsecondary level.
Teachers & Writers publishes work that is concise, lively, and geared to a general audience. Prospective entrants for the Bechtel Prize are encouraged to review a sample issue of
Teachers & Writers to familiarize themselves with the magazine’s style. Go to
www.twc.org/publications/magazine
to order a sample issue of the magazine for $5.00.

Please refer to the submission guidelines below for additional information.

2010 Bechtel Prize Submission Guidelines
• Entry fee: $20 for each entry (make checks payable to Teachers & Writers Collaborative). Each fee entitles the entrant to a new one-year subscription to Teachers & Writers or a one-year extension of a current subscription. Please indicate your choice and include a complete address for subscriptions.
• Submissions should relate to creative writing education and/or literary studies.
• Submissions must be previously unpublished and under 5,000 words in length.
• Submissions must be typed, paginated, and double-spaced.
• Submissions will be judged anonymously. The author’s name and address must not appear anywhere on the essay/article.
• Two copies of the entry must be submitted. One copy should include a cover page with the following information: the author’s name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, the title of the submission, and where the author learned about the Bechtel Prize. The other copy should include a cover page with only the title.
• Authors of the Bechtel Prize winner and finalists must permit T&W to publish their submissions in Teachers & Writers magazine. The winner must permit T&W to publish the essay on the T&W website. T&W reserves the right to edit the submissions for publication.
• Please mail entries to The Bechtel Prize, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 520 Eighth Ave., Ste. 2020, New York, NY 10018. Entries may be delivered to T&W between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Submissions will not be accepted via e-mail or fax.
• Submissions must be received by 5:00 PM (Eastern), Wednesday, June 30, 2010.
• Submissions that do not conform to the above guidelines will not be reviewed for the Bechtel Prize. Submissions will not be returned to the authors.
2020 VISIONS
2020 Visions Continues with Thomas Lux & Jeffrey McDaniel, Steven Polansky & Charles Conley

The 2020 Visions series at Teachers & Writers Collaborative features readings as well as discussions of the writing process, how mentors and students learn from each other and evolve into artistic peers, and the role of inspiration in the classroom and beyond.

Join us at 7:30 PM on Wednesday, April 21, for a reading and conversation featuring:

• Thomas Lux, Bourne Professor of Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His most recent book is The Cradle Place (Houghton Mifflin, 2008).
• Jeffrey McDaniel, who teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and who is the author of The Endarkenment, Alibi School, The Forgiveness Parade, and The Splinter Factory.

Fiction takes center stage at 7:00 PM on Monday, May 10, when our readers will include:

• Steven Polansky, whose short fiction has appeared in, among other places, the New Yorker, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, Glimmer Train, New England Review, and Minnesota Monthly. His new novel, The Bradbury Report, which Kirkus Reviewscalls “sublimely witty and soulfully sympathetic,” will be published by Weinstein Books on May 4.
• Charles Conley, currently a fellow at T&W, was a 2008-2009 fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His stories have appeared in the Harvard Review and the Southern Review, among other publications.

2020 Visions readings, which are free and open to the public, are held at T&W’s Center for Imaginative Writing, 520 Eighth Avenue (between 36th and 37th Streets), 20th floor. For more information about the writers appearing in the series, updates on upcoming events, and directions to T&W, e-mail events@twc.org, call 212-691-6590, or go to the T&W website: www.twc.org/events.