I borrowed this poetry writing lesson from Claudio “Storm” San Miguel, who created it when he was with in the 1990s. As Storm describes it:

Perhaps one of my more successful projects involved dreams and wakefulness. I asked the students to first isolate a brief moment in time. The time between entering the classroom to sitting down, sharpening a pencil, waking up to opening eyes, etc. I wanted all the concrete details they could remember. After spending perhaps 10 minutes (I really don’t know how long) writing, I asked the students to flip their paper over and to remember or make up a dream that had at least one element of the real time in it. From there we combined the two for the results you see before you. I think the success came from the foundation we had already built in discussions on the variety of dreams, nothing is what it seems, and the many faces (masks) we wear daily.

When I have done this I have followed Storm’s model, prefacing it at the very beginning by walking in and talking about my own experience of a dream intersecting with the real.

Once with a group of ninth-graders, I talked about a dream I had the night before about walking in downtown Houston. In the dream I’m outside, of course, except some architects are building a great dome over the skyscrapers and into the sky, so that the sky really is a ceiling. Everything is becoming “inside.” I think it is beautiful in a way, but they are using bricks for material. The sky/ceiling has nearly reached the top if its arc, when the bricks begin to fall piece by piece. The people begin running and moving. I see a brick hit someone in front of me, and feel frightened, at the same time relieved because it is not me. I wake with the sense that I could be hit at any moment, but then immediately forget the dream.

These particular ninth graders, who were often listless or ornery, were listening. Then, I said, I got up, had my breakfast, drank my coffee, thought about what I was going to do during the day, did some work, got ready for school, jumped in my car and turned on the radio where I heard something about Bosnia that was particularly upsetting, but I couldn’t think about it because I was going to school, and I pulled up on Watson street and up over I-10 about to turn west, when I looked out over the Houston skyline and suddenly remembered my dream, and the feel of bricks falling over my head. Here the dream connected with several waking thoughts—my movements around Houston, catastrophe in Bosnia, the possible sense of being overwhelmed, even, by my own work. The students got this, talked about it, the odd synchronicity of remembering dreamtime in the midst of the day.

It is more effective if you are willing to share your own experiences of the idea you are trying to put forward. That is often enough for a warm up. From this point, you could choose to pass an example, such as this one by Nadia.

Student Sample: Dream/Real poem

5:59 a.m. My eyes open only to be greeted
with more

handfuls of clouds in an endless sky
always light with the touch of the sun
rainbows stretched across the horizon
unicorns gracefully dancing for rain,

darkness. As the gravity pushes on my lids
I am shaken with a sudden

I fall down a winding slide,
the slide stops yet I am still falling

noise. This noise I hear 5 days a week
6:00 a.m.

Now in silent darkness
I land in a black alley.

Everyday. Still dark outside I lay in bed,
in my blanket of security.

I get up, I begin to run
running away from a man
a man with a knife chasing me

I am safe, I am happy, I am at home

I hear my death song
playing on a piano.
I am playing the piano.

I then realize I have a whole week
ahead of me. Only to look forward to the
weekend.

by Nadia, 9th grade

contributed by Jane Creighton, Writers in the Schools

The WITS Meeting House project unites creative writing with inspired drawing; hundreds of students, working with WITS teachers, created self-portraits, and 158 of them now reside on the Flickr site.

One portrait that I especially like was drawn and painted by a girl named Chelsey. It’s simple, yet striking: the hair is a sensible, realistic black, but the face is purple, the nose green, the neck blue, the eyes pink. A corona of colors surrounds her face. Red, yellow, and black, among others, make an appearance: the colors of the rainbow, but in a muted, somewhat discordant key. They colors been thickly drawn, so that the grain in the mark left behind by the colored pencil can be seen.

I am never sure, when viewing these pictures, how much of the final creation was intentional, and how much was accidental. The ambiguity resonates with me; I can relate to it in my own work, when the features that people like in my writing often seem like errors to me, while the parts I labored over escape without mention. Taken as a whole, one senses the struggle between the artist’s vision and the artist’s powers in the thick lines and rough edges of the Meeting House picture set.

Around the head, in a curved, jagged line that is easy to pull off in a drawing but much more difficult to do in print, Chelsey has written her poem. Superimposed on the riot of colors surrounding her head, it reads:

Swirl the curls atop my head with a black, dark and rich, like crow’s feathers.

The simple, perhaps unconscious aesthetic choice to make the hair the one realistic color in the face makes it click for me. I’ve never met Chelsey in real life, but I like to imagine that if I did, that raven-black hair would allow me to spot her and say, you look exactly like your picture.

posted by Julian Martinez, Writers in the Schools

Note from the Editor: It is interesting that out of over 150 student self-portraits that make up The Meeting House, Julian chose Chelsey’s. He does not know Chelsey, but she has attended WITS Summer camp for the past 12 years and will graduate from HSPVA this month. She is an amazing writer, and I suspect that the artistic choices made in this work flowed from her many years of creative experience. This weekend Chelsey will receive a scholarship from Alpha Kappa Alpha , and she will attend college in the fall.  Congratulations, Chelsey!

Black is as dark as the inside of a Beluga whale.
Black is as bold and tough as a panther ripping apart its prey.
Black is as mysterious as a shadow knocking on your door at midnight.
Black can fly as high as a rocket ship blasting into the depths of outer space.
Black is as loud as eternal silence.
Black is as hard as a massive piece of limestone being pounded by a huge hammer.
Black is as cold as a ghost lurking around you.
Black cannot be broken.

by Daniel, 5th Grade

[photo by sprocket87 via flickr]

All
But my
Cat and
Dog
Eat low
Fat food and wear
Gap shirts and
Hats.
I’m a person who likes
Jelly.
Kate used to be a nice name but now it’s
Lame. A
Mouse lives in my house
Now because
Of a cat. He
Put cheese in my house to catch the mouse but
Quacked like a duck and now is a
Rat and
Sits on the couch on
Tuesdays. You
Used the bathroom to put on your
Velvet dress but it
Was black and white like an
X-ray and
You didn’t like it.
Zingolingo is a good game.

by Osmar, 3rd grade

[Photo by Leo Reynolds via flickr]

Here is a list of the amazine young WITS writers who performed at The Menil Collection on Tuesday, May 13, 2008:

Maria Aguilera

Mohammed A. Al-Ali

Alice Alsup

Collin Brant

Shantricniece Brewster

Ariel Brigham

Leslie A. Campos

Yolanda Canales

Leah Chavez

Lauren Cherry

Miriam Connor

Yessica Contreras

Sergio De Paz

Daniel Echeverri

Janet Flores

Alex Fuentes

Juan Garcia

Rafael Garcia

Tommie Garcia

Jake Garrison

Luke George

Elizabeth Gibson

Alyssa Gomez

Paul Gonzalez

April Grant

Linda J. Gutierrez

Elissa Hakemack

Javanti Hall

Nash Haydon

Rebecca Herd

Michael Hernandez

Josie Herrera

Tyrell Hines

Justin Jackson

Niara Jeffery

Sherri Jiles

Courtney Jones

Josselin Joya

Katherine Kelley

Michelle Landis

Naftali Lazaroff

Johana Lopez

Anna Luna

Henry Maldonado

Eleni Markantonis

Homero Martinez

Bria Moore

Gabriel Morales

Victoria Moreno

Salvador Munoz

Sarina Neal

Amber Nelson

Kevin Nguyen

Gregory O’Brien

Montserrat Olmos

Yovanna Ortiz

Dillon Patterson

Sirena Pena

Yvonne Pham

Parris Powell

Esthefany Primero

Itzel Pulido

Luigi Ramirez

Jazzmin Readeaux

Diego Rodriguez

Maria Rodriguez

Ruby Rosales

Carter Rowland

Brenda Rubio

Daniel Rueda

Madelyn Ruiz

Juan Salas

Karen Sanchez

Wesley Singleton

Shane Sluder

Geoffrey Sockwell

Cesar Torres

Oneida Toscano

Michael Tran

Taha Usman

Karen Vargas

Robin Warner

Maya Wesley

Andrea Wirt

Floricele Yanez

Raina Zhang

Here is the list of incredible young WITS writers who performed at The Menil Collection on Monday, May 12, 2008:

Lora Abousaway

Emma Allbright

Averie Allwein

Selasi Amoani

Camila Araujo

Michelle Arellano

Meg Ashman

Fernando Avendano

Madison Black

Quincy Bledsaw

Tamara Brown

Julia Bugos

Kassandra Bustos-Doria

Jose Canales

Angeles Cano

Susan Castillo

Audie Choi

Reese Costis

Hanh Dang

Audresha Davis

Keshawn Denning

Kiaynah Dickerson

Bobby Eaton

Destiny Enriquez

Fadila Farag

Jeffery Flor

Amber Flores

Anthony Flores

Jocelyn Garza

Jazmin Gomez

Erika Gonzalez

Rianna Hamilton

Shane Hauser

Madison Henderson

Alesse Humphrey

Shayna Israel

Francisco Izaguirre

Ashley Marie Johnson

Larisa Juarez

Troy Kinsey

Meredith Knight

Dani Landweber

Sini Lehtinen

Daniel Liao

Wyatt Macicek

Naissa Martinez

Lisa Mata

Brian McAughan

Jack McNeill

Ashley Meremikwu

Colin Minx

Seshni Naidoo

Mia Netro

Amane Numata

Marcos Oviedo

Adam Palomares

Annie Park

Aaliyah Parker

Devin Pennington

Madison Perch

Naomi Pryzant

Bishop Ray

Rebecca Rodriguez

Amanda Rosas

Zach Roubein

Arisa Sadeghpour

Esmerelda Sanchez

Miranda Santiago

Miguel Santos

Javier Silva

Josalynn Smith

Susan Sockwell

Charlotte Stubbins

Justin Sun

Jacob Tate

Jake Vail

Shunta Vaughn

Juliana Ventura

Bria Wallace

Cody Warchesik

Simon Weiner

Julius Wilkins

Austin Willard

Olivia Zhang

The WITS Young Writers Reading Series will be held tonight (May 12) and tomorrow night (May 13) at 7 pm at The Menil Collection.

Who: 150 Houston area students, some of the best young writers in the city

What: Selected students will read their best stories, poems, and essays

Keynote speakers:

Monday: Katherine Center

Tuesday: Shannon Buggs

Where: The Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross, 77006

When: Monday and Tuesday, May 12 and 13 (7 p.m.)

Cost: Free

Download the event postcard here.

Sponsors: The Menil Foundation, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, H-E-B Tournament of Champions, Wells Fargo, Copy.com, and Kat Mims of nosh

Michael Truth bravely served as the sacrificial poet at the first annual Houston Young Writers Poetry Slam on Saturday, May 10, 2008. Michael is a member of the TSU slam team, and his performance inspired the middle and high school participants, as well as the entire audience. The slam was sponsored by the Houston Chronicle and took place before the Art Car Parade began.

posted by Robin Reagler, Writers in the Schools

Here are some poems written from WITS students to their moms.

Someone I Love

Evening

Poetry

The Flame of Fire

Tanka

To My Mama

Have a beautiful weekend.

[photo by Gareth I Davies via flickr]