Write the past, create the Future @ WB

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At our WB session yesterday, mentors and mentees were able to write their past and create their future. For most of us, this is not easy to do. However, when you have support from a great community like WB anything is possible. If poetry did not exist... we wouldnt be YMC!

WB's Haiku session

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This past Tuesday, WB Mentors & Mentees had the opportunity to use their "poetic side" by creating a Haiku. (Which is a poetic form that originated in Japan and is written in three lines of 5-7-5 syllables.) The session ended with a Haiku Slam, and to say the least it was a great way to begin our first group session in 2013. Here's a peek at one that was created: cold windy night alive - shivered as I walk home alone - thinking about my life

Cheaper than therapy

Long before hip hop and rap slams originated in Chicago in the 70s and Eminem famously disgorged the contents of his stomach on screen (woops there goes gravity) people were using spoken word and poetry to give voice to the things that moved their souls and angered their social consciousness. 

In fact, the Japanese have the form beat by some 500 years with Haiku slams.  Haiku is an efficient form of poetry having three lines of five, seven and five syllables, originally invoking nature.  But modern folks have expanded the form to include all kinds of expression usually related to the nature of our experiences in this world.  There is even Gangsta Haiku and Funny Haiku. 

So, we decided to write impromptu Haiku at our mentoring session Friday at Shout Factory and see what kind of expression would emerge.  Our mentors and young people never cease to impress and amaze with the soulful wisdom that they express in the moment. We turned it into a slam, with judging based on content and delivery.  It escalated into a two team Haiku smack down with people standing in groups and calling out the other side.  Here are the two winning poems along with a mentor's expression that I feel relates to the therapeutic process of mentoring in general:

The world turns around me

My breath is taken away

I am now awake

Mario (mentee)

My life is a stage

I guess I have to dance it

Dancer hits the beat

Tony (mentee)

Writing this haiku

All the years of therapy

This was much cheaper

Dana (mentor)

with much appreciation,

 

Tony

 

Tony LoRe

CEO/Founder, Youth Mentoring Connection

In A Dark Time Look to the Poet

I have been finding it more difficult to blog lately as the events of the world lay heavy on my soul; the inequities I see all around; the absurd and expanding wealth of a few contrasted by the extreme hunger and pain of so many, perpetuated by too many lies and too much fear.

...and I don't want to fill these pages with simple lamentations about the conditions of the world when there is also beauty and hope to be found.

Some medicine arrived this morning: my good friend Alan Cohen sent this poem by the Nigerian poet Ben Okri. It reminds me how much the poetic voice can carry one through hard times and make sense of the often unbearable. Poets remind us that our souls are stronger than our circumstances and that when we are not sure where to turn, we can always turn to our imagination...and to the poet to wake up the imagination in us.

It also reminds us that our wounds are the fertile ground in which we may plant the seeds of our highest destiny.

An African Elegy
We are the miracles that God made
To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.

And one day our suffering
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.
There are things that burn me now
Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things
And that we never curse the air when it is warm
Or the fruit when it tastes so good
Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless things even in our pain.
We bless them in silence.
That is why our music is so sweet.
It makes the air remember.
There are secret miracles at work
That only Time will bring forth.
I too have heard the dead singing.
And they tell me that
This life is good
They tell me to live it gently
With fire, and always with hope.
There is wonder here
And there is surprise
In everything the unseen moves.
The ocean is full of songs.
The sky is not an enemy.
Destiny is our friend.
- Ben Okri

Thanks Alan for spreading the gift of poetry.

Humbly,

Tony

PS Thanks also to Heather and Ruby for the poems that you sent to me and all of our mentors and my fellows in this work. There is nourishment all around.

The Rhymes of a Discriminated Student - Wake Up America!

I always have a lot to say about how our culture leaves youth behind and how our education system is inherently discriminatory.  However, I have never put it quite so eloquently as our young man Elmer Reyes.  Here he offers his firsthand account as a student in South Central Los Angeles.  Listen to his mix of gratitude, recognition and intelligent anger as he cries out to all of us to become heroic teachers, mentors and a more just society.

The Rhymes of a Discriminated Student

There is a huge epidemic in the United States.

The achievement gap shows the devastating rates.

The statistics are staggering, it has to change.

The system is corrupted, it’s not the same.

The poor minority students think it’s a game.

African American and Latino students don’t find it strange.
But all the schools in urban cities compare a cage.
Keeping students confined like if they’re insane.
That’s what gets most of them enraged.
And leads to high school dropouts that didn’t graduate.
If only teachers knew how to motivate.
Instead of teachers who discriminate.
To give students a chance and communicate.
There would be more students to educate.

As the white, middle class, majority students succeed.
Urban city students roam the streets.
Not caring about a high school diploma or a college degree.
Causing the achievement gap to increase.
What type of solution does it take to make the gap decrease.
The one that has teachers actually teach.
To show students something they’ve never seen.
To make their dreams a reality.
And they can be what they want to be.
If only teachers had this ability.
Then the achievement gap would be filled with tranquility.
And have both majority and minority students in universities.

Urban city schools have so many problems.
People have to find away how to solve them.
Like one of my teachers that was involved in
After school programs where students would taunt him.
But slowly gained their respect and then brought them
Books that he would give and then taught them
How to get good grades in school projects.
He motivated and pushed them to accomplish.
A high school diploma that he promised.

My teacher had the skill to communicate
With minds that were hard to educate.
This is a solution that can make change.
If only there were more teachers that were the same
The achievement gap would have never been made.
I’m sure this solution will even out the rates.
That have been made and claimed
Throughout the United States.
Imagine all of the graduations.
Caused by teachers that had communication.
That stayed after school with dedication.
And gave urban city students inspiration.
And let them see that success comes from education.
That knowledge is power there should be no hesitation.
All the teachers need the communication.
To give urban city students motivation.
 Elmer Reyes

Thanks Elmer for sharing your voice with us and reminding us of our responsibility toward the education of all youth.

Tony

Elmer and his Mentor Jeff at Warner Bros.



Tony LoRe

CEO/Founder, Youth Mentoring Connection / Urban Oasis

Odyssey - Haiku Writing 1.12.11

The end of the year provides the opportunity to look back, review, and reflect. The beginning of a new year provides the opportunity to look forward and invite into our lives the things that will make us fulfilled.In this session the mentees received the opportunity to write a Haiku as a medium for expression.With the help of their mentors the mentees wrote about some of the goals and plans they want for the year.

WB Haiku: Jan. 18, 2011

On this Session the Mentees recieved an opportunity to work with their Mentors to create Haiku's about their lives, about some of the goals and new plans for this year. It is a perfect activity for YMC youth to open up and share their dreams. Some of our shyest youth opened up during this session with the support of their Mentors and staff.

I love us!

“That was my favorite part of the day!” Tony exclaimed talking about how he and our staff jumped into action when two of our young men were about to throw down at one of our sessions. He beams as he recall how he and Free, our youth support staff, instinctively foresaw when Juan had had enough of Jose’s goading and were on him before he could actually land a punch, while Monk took over facilitation seamlessly. “I love it because, we can’t do anything about it until it shows up – and it showed up!” 

This is why I love us… because we welcome our youth to show up with their wounds, because we run towards what is scary, when most would run. Because we go there – yeah, I said it, we go there. We create the space where our young people can access their emotions not matter how much it may frighten them. Where we challenge them to write their “Last Words”, and for the first time Graciela silently weeps and talks about her shame at never having expressed love towards her brother, or where Alicia talks about how the scar she got in a car accident makes her feel ugly, or when they finally find their voice during our poetry session like Jonathan did on Tuesday at our Paramount session. He wrote:

In my dreams I see myself helping my mom, and getting her worries out.

Showing her I lover her and thanking her for working hard for my brother and me.

In the night I wish I had a father who would help m and play soccer with me.

I cry and cry when I see kids having fun with their father.

I pray to God that one day I become a man with money to help my mother

And help those who need help.

I am so thankful to God for the family and friends I have,

But when I wake up, I wonder if these are just dreams.

As Jonathan wept speaking about his longing for a father, he knew he was surrounded by a community that would not judge him because he had heard mentors and mentees speak about the scars that still stung them.

“Our gifts lie next to our wounds” – and oh the gifts they have brought us. So here is to our wounds! Celebrate them, explore them, accept them and then welcome the beauty that hid behind the pain.

Juliana

Number One Supporter

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