Programming Spotlight: BAM's Word. Sound. Power. 2023

 On Wednesday, April 26th Belmont’s St. John’s group had front row seats for BAM’s annual celebration of poetry and hip-hop called Word. Sound. Power.

This year’s performance highlighted the griot as emcee with the ever-fresh artist-poet Baba Israel in that role.  Students’ favorites included  Dahlak Brathwaite, Helixx C. Armageddon, Silent Knight, and Pri the Honey Dark.  

Brilliant, heavy, inspiring, and hard-hitting,  and just when we  thought  the show couldn’t get any better it found new ways to amplify the messages we all needed to hear.

Even better yet, the following week, Jayson P. Smith visited with our students and led a creative writing workshop which brought us back to Armageddon's "James Baldwin."
A language-rich SEL-grounded experience indeed.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Poetry Performance at BAM

Students residing at the Blum group home attended Poetry 2016: Past Is Present, a performance that opened on Thursday and will continue at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Fishman Space through next week.  Attendees were welcomed by DJ Reborn, warmed up with Baba Isreal, and then took in performance poetry from Climbing PoeTree, Liza Jessie Peterson, Flaco Navaja and Jennifer Cendana Armas, as well as a couple of impressive peers giving debut readings.  Poems were accompanied by beatboxing, dancing, and live music, as well as moving projections, making meaning on a variety of levels and adding to the complexity of the art.  The performance was followed by a Q & A onstage with all of the participants and everyone seemed to enjoy this foray into a new space.  Many thanks to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens for providing the critical funding to purchase tickets, and to Ms. Nadel, Ms. DeLara, Ms. Aiyana, Ms. Sandra, Blum Staff, and Mr. Watters and Mr. Moe at ACS for working as a team to make this trip a success.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Guest Post: With Their Eyes Edited by Annie Thoms

Just four blocks from Ground Zero, Stuyvesant High School students witnessed the horrors of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. With Their Eyes presents a collection of twenty-three stories of that day, told by members of the diverse Stuyvesant community including students, teachers and other school personnel. The work was performed in February of 2002, as a two-act play by ten Stuyvesant students and was received with resounding praise from audience members. The heartfelt stories and beautifully arranged poetry leave lasting reminders of what that day's effect has been on each and everyone of us. The illustrations, the Chronology of Events, the photos and stories are compelling and honest and serve as a wonderful springboard for engaging students to relate their own stories of 9/11. I have often used this book with Passages’ students, reading and discussing the Chronology of Events and a selection of essays and poems. After that, students begin drafting and then discussing personal recollections of the days events; ie. how old were they, what grade, what school, what borough they were in. Did they know anyone directly/indirectly involved and how were they involved? A wonderful creative writing tool to use in conjunction with honoring and memorializing the heroes and victims of 9/11. --Mary Lou DeLigio

With Their Eyes: September 11th: the view from a high school at Ground Zero. Ed. Annie Thoms. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.