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Introduction by Katharine Gin
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Portrait of Heba Abdoun, Mission High School
Katharine Gin |
In the past four months, WritersCorps students have invited me into a spirited conversation about themselves and the world around them. The conversation has been colorful and complex, reflecting the astounding diversity of the students themselves.
This year students were given the challenge of learning poetry and
photography simultaneously. While the former requires introspection and
self-revelation, the latter benefits from an attitude of self-effacement and a willingness to turn outwards and quietly observe one’s surroundings. The students embraced both forms with diligence and openness. I learned many lessons working with these students. First and foremost I learned that constraint could be an essential ingredient of creativity. Some of the most successful artwork in this collection comes from students in the juvenile justice system. These young men created powerful and evocative images, often while working within the confines of a single concrete classroom.
Frustration with verbal communication is also a powerful agent for artistic creation. Many devoted and talented poets and photographers in this collection are immigrant students who have grown up speaking languages other than
English. They yearn to communicate in ways that aren’t compromised by an unusual accent or special intonation pattern, in ways that celebrate their differences instead of marking them as inferior. Through poetry and photography, they have succeeded in communicating with subtlety and depth.
Finally I have learned a great deal about faith. Not blind faith, but faith in the power of patient and careful inspection. These students have shown me that poems eventually find their way into your head when you sit quietly and concentrate deeply enough. They have shown me that gorgeous photographs can always be found if you look closely enough — even on rainy days and bad hair days, even in dark corners and dingy hallways, even when you can’t leave the lunchroom or when the cute boy or girl turns and walks away without a smile. Even when the light’s not exactly right.
“Take me take me with you,” writes Sandra Reyes in her poem Open Arms. “I am waiting also to be known.” On behalf of WritersCorps students, I hope this collection will open your arms — and hearts.
Katharine Gin, Editor Read the Foreword by Janet Heller >>
Read poems and view photos from Where Were You >>
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