Maya McFadden Photo
Laureate Little with King/Robinson students.
Fifth-grader Aly Gaye knew where to start when New Haven’s poet laureate asked him to write verses about himself: My power lies in my brain, in my smarts.
Maya McFadden Photo
Fifth-grader Aly Gaye makes his powers known.
Gaye’s poem was one of the products of a workshop taught Wednesday by New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont “Influence” Little to fifth and sixth graders at King/Robinson Interdistrict Magnet School. The students joined Little for a lesson in spoken word poetry to branch off their recent unit in poetry in their ELA class.
Little tasked the students with writing a poem about themselves that uses the same starting phrase for each line or to freestyle.
Students protested to Little that they wouldn’t be able to put together such detailed magic on paper like he did while demonstrating spoken word poetry to the class. “You’re great enough to try,” he reminded them.
So they did.
Most students formatted the start of their poems with Little’s suggested phrase “I come from…” though Gaye decided to make his own creative decisions and went a different route with his poem, which he named “My Power”:
My power lies in my athletic ability
My power lies in my strength
My power lies In my self proudness
My power lies in my belief in myself
My power lies in my fiery spirit
My power lies in myself
My power lies in my beautiful Black skin
That is where my power lies.
Click here to watch Gaye and his fifth grade classmates perform their poems.
Other students’ poems highlighted their roots, God’s blessings, their moms’ love, Afghanistan, respecting teachers, and Newhallville.
Gaye, 10, said Wednesday’s poetry workshop by Little was inspiring. “I like making my own freestyle poem because it feels like you have a lot of power and control,” he said. Gaye added that his poem was inspired by his recent reading of the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which taught him that self-esteem is important.
His advice to others was “for anyone who wants to try poetry to speak your mind and let your heart lead.”
Little said his goal Wednesday was to help the students improve their public speaking skills and learn that being a poet is a career possibility. “When I was a kid, literature wasn’t a career model, it was just something you had to do,” he recalled.
Here’s Little’s version of Wednesday poetry prompt:
I come from the city of New Haven
I come from my mother’s love
I come from my grandmother saying ‘boy, you better tell the truth’
I come from rainy nights full of thunder with momma saying ‘boy hush God is calling’
I come from Saturday morning cartoons, Tom and Jerry, ThunderCats, and Voltron
I come from Sunday morning church services and Sunday dinners, Ox tails, collard greens, candied yams, and sweet corn bread
I come from ‘you better respect your elders’ ‘no talking back’ ‘you better do your school work while you in that schoolhouse’
I come from ‘you better be good’
I come from ‘you need to be an intellectual that’s the only thing in the world they can’t take from you’
I come from in my neighborhood there’s crime
I come from not being a follower
I come from being a leader
I come from be positive, being a good person
I come from no matter what they do always remember I come from greatness
I come from being great
Event organizer Valerie Knowles with Little.
Its wonderful that students had the opportunity to work with Poet Laureate Sharmont Influence Little to further their lessons in writing poetry. The poems they wrote mentioned here are fantastic! This is such an inspiring way to teach literacy and bring out self confidence in young writers.