#jbwc

Recently, Canalside hosted the Boardwalk Bazaar which featured a colorful variety of vendors, musicians, and performers alike. Nestled into the scene were young writers Carson and Eden, both members of JBWC who were welcomed to write during circus arts performances by the Bird’s Nest. Eden, Carson, and JBWC coordinator Robin all collaborated in writing a poem to capture the energy of the moment. As performers pirouetted through the crowd and danced in the air using ribbon, a poem was slowly formed:

                             THE BIRD’S NEST AT CANALSIDE

                                              July 21, 2017

And what if your arms were

 scarves instead? Would

they hold you any differently?

 Would you run or dance with me?

Today everything I tried to

hold floated away from me.

Yesterday every time the

 sky fizzed, unfurled

Into caterwauls, hornets

 defenestrated themselves.

The sun was unsettled

 as it set

   over translucent tents  

and tired travelers.

Effort shown in the way

gravity slowly unwinds her sash,

           her twirls pollinate camera

lenses and paper alike,

I am sure the twirls belong to a child on

her swingset

               as the spectator is a-part the scene

If Johnny Cash was here he

 would kick off his boots

too and say “what’s more in

  the moment than the moment

itself?”

It is hard to believe that the JBWC has been showing the young people of Buffalo how creative writing can alter the way they see and interact with the world for three years now. Whether meeting acclaimed authors or exploring poetry/comics/songwriting/spoken word/the intersection of writing and activism/you-name-it with local writers & teaching artists, every week at the JBWC in unforgettable. 

Aligning perfectly with the Center’s three-year celebration, literary powerhouse, Dave Eggers, visited the JBWC as part of Just Buffalo’s BABEL lecture series. Along with his series of bestselling novels and publications, Eggers is known for his 826 writing centers that support under-served students with their writing skills.

Introduced by JBWC Youth Ambassador, Hannah, Eggers showed young writers in attendance the very first book he ever wrote as a child and encouraged every young person who writes to put themselves out there by sharing their work with others. Eggers even asked JBWC young writers, Ikuris and Lucy, to give impromptu readings from their journals, giving each of them line-by-line feedback.

JBWC young writers were excited to be able to give Eggers a booklet of writing inspired by his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (see excerpt below) and to talk to him all about their experiences at the JBWC. To give him even more of a sense of the amazing writing created at the JBWC, five youth ambassadors were given the opportunity to open up for Eggers before his evening lecture in front of a packed audience. Needless to say, they brought the house down! Check out their performance here!

 Words can’t quite express how meaningful of a day this was for the JBWC and its young writers. The Buffalo community and Mr. Eggers treated our young writers like the superstars they are!

Finally, many thanks to Buffalo’s alt-media source, The Public, for publishing an article celebrating our third year! Read it here!

Very Deep Writing by Carson

inspired by Dave Eggers

Disclaimer: all facts contained within this piece are true. In fact, that is the definition of a fact.  On the flipside, all non-facts contained within are not true. The reader is advised against misconstruing non-facts as facts and vice-versa. Additionally, the following piece contains several alternative facts, which are not non-facts but are also not, in the strictest definition, true. They are, shall we say, the margarine to facts’ butter. And before we get started, I’d like to thank my family, my friends, my dog, my house, and my food for helping me to get through the epic process of writing this novelesque master-work. Also, thanks to the horror of mortality for inspiring this piece.

~~~~~

In Forest Lawn Cemetery, fairly close to where I live, there’s a deer – or a buck, specifically. I think he’s been stuck in there for years. When I mention him to people they say that they’ve seen him too. I guess he’s kind of a well-known public figure. I went walking in the cemetery the other day and managed to see him up close. It was an interesting experience. It has struck me, recently, that there may be a metaphor in here somewhere. Maybe, if I had more time and more energy, I could have fleshed out this sliver of a thought into something more. I would present to you my grand metaphor about death and life and stuff in flowery prose that would make you say “Woah…this kid is having some deep thoughts.” At present, though, I am not having very deep thoughts. I am, instead, having thoughts about lunch and sleep. 

 PHOTO CREDITS IN ORDER:

-Bruce Jackson

-Noah Falck

-Bruce Jackson

“I used to think the fame and money was the motivation/ until I toured the world and met the people face to face and/ understood that the power was harnessed in that basement/ It ain’t about the money and notoriety” -Logic: 44 Bars

This specific lyric from Logic’s very emotional piece “44 Bars” stood out to me because Logic, in particular, is a rapper who talks a lot about previous financial struggles, and this, in my opinion, was a very clever wording, that made the concept seem a lot more intense, and interpersonal between him and his fans.

“Guts Over Fear” By Eminem

Last week our JBWC students were joined by playwright and essayist Susan Hodge Anner, author of the blog “What I Know Right Now,” who led an engaging workshop on writing and performing Dramatic Monologues. After an engaging session of body awareness exercises, the students wrote monologues, some of which were inspired by a selection of paintings by John Singer Sargent. Check out a breathaking example by JBWC young writer, Eden, below.

“Papa told me when I was very young to stop playing with birds. “Let them fly,” he would say, “You have neither the authority nor the courage to pluck them so badly from the sky.” The day he died, I had been wearing a pink dress made of silk. Its long voluptuous sash cascaded with every skip as I returned from the forest. Although only a day old, the dress had started to tear through the brambles, leaving shreds of my mother’s handiwork scattered like the stitches of the forest, sewing together the leaves of my childhood. Upon hearing the doctor pronounce my father dead, I had torn the dress ever more apart, uprooting whatever dignity had remained from trampling through the forest...I never treasured materials bought by papa, they were the reminder of his absence in my life and his disapproving manners when he was here. Indeed, when I vowed to stop trying to shave my slight mustache and beard, Papa was blatantly against it. Well, see me now, papa, perched like a queen with fine jewelry, perfectly at ease...I have reminded the painter to include my facial hair. I challenge you, papa. I do not know if the dead can see, but if you can, then you will surely notice the snow white pigeon in my hand. It looks at you too, papa, for I have flown away.”

In this powerful workshop by Sherry Robbins (“Falling Down, Rising Up”), students first visited the underworld through ancient poems like The Descent of Inanna and Dante’s Inferno in order to imagine their own descent. What would it look and sound like? Why might you go? Who else is there? White Rabbits? Flatterers? Your sister? Next, they considered rising up. Sherry asked our young writers, “What, specifically, lightens and elevates you?” 

Check out their poetic responses below!

FALLING DOWN

I’d tell you what it’s like

to feel your throat pierced with

needles

here’s your tattoo gun

here’s your ink

Tell me I’m happy again

outline the lines in my palms and turn

my hairline into your whispers.....

~Rob

RISING UP

There’s a moment.

A moment in the morning when you’re

not awake or asleep.

A moment where the weight of the

world hasn’t settled on your shoulders

yet.

NONE of us can remember it, but we

all know it’s there.

The world is ours before we open our

eyes.

~Kareem

The only way to show you how excited I am

would be to grab my rib cage and

open it up and let my feelings fly out.

Because the only way to exist enough

to explain would make me explode.

Last week at the JBWC our young writers took a moment to acknowledge Banned Books Week by pulling books that have been banned/challenged down from our shelves and having a "read out." Take a listen! Many thanks to Canisius College archivist, Kathleen DeLaney, for her visit and for encouraging us to take part!