I view, take stock,
make art,
remember community
and breathe in, then out.
So the first thing that I can do I can always do is give thanks to the giants who are helping me with my own ability to see and communicate with the children that work with me.
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| http://writingforpeace.org/alabanza-in-praise-of-local-100/ |
In this case we're talking Michelle Otero and one of her heroes, now mine, Martin Espeda.
I was in New York City on 9/11. I rode under the World Trade Center at about 8:00 am that day. I was on my way to visit my friend in Princeton, New Jersey and it was a total fluke that I was there for moments, minutes before the first plane hit the North tower for normally I would not be up and about during a NYC rush hour in midtown or near Wall St. on a work day if I could avoid it as a short term visitor.
I was there that day from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was not there as a seasoned urbanite New York woman that was raised in the rush of a city where millions swarm as a matter of livelihood. As a prodigal daughter I knew better to travel in-between the rushes of am, midday, and evening-- When I could, to travel the slower stream and avoid the rushing river of jammed terse people whenever possible. Yet I had misread the timetable and thought there was only one train to Princeton in the morning, and as I only had a day to visit my friend, I left early to make the most of it.
So the World Trade Center and the 9-11 story is personal. I was there just before and nearby when the first plane hit and we saw (I was with my friend) the people around us in the coffee shop in Princeton, talking in groups, whispering, pointing to things on a screen behind the counter and seriously wondering about something almost un-understandable, for nothing like this seemed real or possible to happen at the twin lightning rods of downtown Manhattan: it was after all the center of the WTO and everything of earth-significance pulsed out of their protocols.
My friend is Patty and over 15 of her neighbors and peers died that morning. They were the first tier of people we might expect to hear died that day: businesspeople, lawyers, bankers, CPAs, executive secretaries and office managers. The next tier we watched with held breath as they desperately yet steadily worked to save those they could, they were the official sung heroes: the fire fighters, the police, the paramedics, the nurses and doctors, the samaritans who came forth.
But what of the unsung heroes? Espeda sings to them, those who keep the table laden with sustenance: the cooks, the dishwashers, the servers, the ones whose names are rarely spoken or asked for, the ones who keep things seamless. Most of them are immigrants taking the jobs that others with any chances to better themselves, pass by.
And as the children that I work with are a blend of transplants like me in Santa Fe, and as many of them are the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves (like me) something about how people are real, how all our stories are important rings so cleanly in Espeda's poem of tribute and longing that I fell in love with it when I heard Michelle introduce Alabanza to the classes we worked with in 2012. It is an amazing piece and it introduces the children to the poetry of the ordinary. The dishwasher is the dish-dog, maybe he comes not from any place but from a mysterious island in the Carribean plagued by frogs. In this poem dedicated to the 43 people who died that morning at the Windows of the World Restaurant as they prepared for another day of service, suddenly we remember not just their deaths but what might have been their lives that day.
So the kids I work with a good 70 percent of them resist the written word. They don't want to read it, they lock their heels in the dirt when asked to write it. It's work. It is for someone else. It is taking away something from them somehow. Yet I know that words are magic. And as we read Espeda's words-- many that they did not understand, they found pictures of life and phrases worthy of repetition like Alabanza(praise) or God has no face (what does that mean?).
Music and Spanish rose before bread-- somehow they could feel themselves as that phrase and pride was a response that I saw as they wrote words and phrases and arranged the 16 snippets of Espeda's work in new and their own configuration. It' s a way in to see that words want to be beautiful and speak across generations or personal more enclosed experiences. And that they, in this case the children in 2012 that I helped and the children in 2014, they have relationship, we have relationship to words as art that speaks to us and moves us to behave and try just a little differently than we know how to so far.
This was the best day so far for me with the children this year. We worked in the teachers lounge (a mysterious place in itself). We read, learned some of the differences and similarities between a phrase and a sentence, made choices, wrote, and arranged unique patterns of Espeda's "Alabanza".
Thank you again Michelle (and of course Martin). I realize that if part of us sharing our stories, listening to each others stories, imagining the stories we wish to live with any depth, part of my work is to share the stories of art and poetry and beauty and poignancy with the children at what is their age appropriate level so it is like a quicksand that they want to fall into and pull out the unexpressed treasure.
And it's a blast to work with your work and example.
And it's a blast to work with your work and example.
The next things we will do is hear each other's arranged pieces. Then I will ask them to draw four images from four phrases that they can imagine-see. So we create new visual stories from the original piece. And then like we did in 2012, we will work and create more personal Alabanza poems, with many repetitions of Alabanza and for those less theatrical, thank you will be the chorus.
Tune in for another installment in a few weeks.
Thanks for reading this my fellow teaching artists, Academy for the Love of Learning support people, teachers, Amy Biehl administrators and friends.
