Conversations with poets, novelists, nonfiction writers, and playwrights about their work and craft, as well as their thoughts on creative writing education.
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by Jehan Roberson That titular truism is one that led many of us to teach, to write, and to examine critically the power held by stewards of “things worth knowing.” At every turn we must question not only the why’s, but the how’s and the who’s. How was this information acquired, and by whom? How…
by Jehan Roberson In part two of her conversation with Jehan Roberson, Nuyorican Poets Café founding poet Lois Elaine Griffith talks about her work as an educator, the Nuyorican as a home for the LGBTQ community, and issues of “ownership” in the arts. You can read the first part of this interview here. Jehan…
Bridging Borders with Words: Writing with Immigrant and Refugee Students The following interviews with students attending the International High School at Union Square were conducted by Susan Karwoska in January 2019. The students, all recent immigrants to the US, discussed poetry, writing, and what it has been like for them to come to this country….
by Jehan Roberson Lois Elaine Griffith is here to tell you a story. An educator, poet, performer, and visual artist, Lois merged her multi-genre gift for storytelling into a career as a founding poet of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe who has advanced the Nuyorican’s message for more than 35 years. Now spearheading the Nuyorican Poets…
by Wynne Kontos Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year, is perhaps most famous for the moment during the awards ceremony at the White House when she gave President Donald Trump a stack of letters written by her students, who are immigrants and refugees new to the United States. At a time when…
By M.L. Thompson Dr. Joshua Bennett – @sirjoshbennett M.L. Thompson – @dreamyuncle LaQuann Dawson Jr. – @laquanndawson If the way things are will be the way things will continue, then we must address time—the boundless landscape of happening. Even before that, though, we must face the students, or at least have an idea of what…
This interview was originally published in 2001. —Ed. DANIEL KANE: One of the things that surprised me in your book Life & Death was that in a number of your poems you used a relatively long line. Your work has, for many years now, been characterized by a short line featuring strong enjambment—this selection from…
By M.L. Thompson M.L. Thompson – @dreamyuncle LaQuann Dawson Jr. – @laquanndawson For some writers, when we pick up a pen the world becomes an expansive wonder waiting to be explored and filled with our stories. We dream in words. We know the word dream to mean more than fantasy. Dreams, for some writers, have…
By M.L. Thompson For some of us, the moment we saw ourselves in an empowering way was a Disney character, or maybe some fleeting instance we never engaged again. For Glenis Redmond, the moment was Yolanda Walker performing “1,968 Winters” at a school assembly. Redmond meditates and explores this performance in her essay, “Poetry As…
By Wynne Kontos Julie Landsman is a writer, a painter, and an educator who spent thirty years in the public school system and now dedicates her time to the elder population facing dementia and Alzheimer’s. Landsman’s Bechtel Prize–winning piece, “Words, Images and Music: How We Enter,” chronicles her life as both an educator and a…