Student Reflections from WR 245: The Poet in the City

“This program is unlike anything I have ever been involved with…[the class] created an environment where students like myself could interact and affect the community they live in. It is invaluable…[it] not only opens the mind but expands the heart…and promotes compassion and tolerance that exist long after the class has ended.” Gabe, Poet in the City student

“As we were all around the table, involved in our process, I wasn’t thinking about what would happen to these kids after the workshop. As I left, the cold hit me hard, and I cried in realization that I had a warm haven to go to, and these kids might be sleeping and attempting to survive without the most basic of human needs being met, a safe haven…”

I appreciate the sense of we—
Our community
Writers all—pen to paper
Heart to minds
Smiles to lips
Ideas and laughter spring forth
Like an artesian spring—
It bubbles beneath the surface
Ideas, energy, experiences
We release it, for all to enjoy and ponder.

–Joni, Poet in the City student

“In 1878, Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard University and spoke about “The American Scholar.” He identified a scholar as having certain attributes: knowing oneself, trusting one's own creative process, and taking action in one’s community. Today, at a time when schools are failing so many of our youth, this program is particularly valuable. It provides the scholar with an opportunity to serve the community outside the walls of school. I am excited to be a part of this program. I know it enriches my life and improves my own work to encourage and assist otherwise disenfranchised young people to find a voice with which to express their thoughts, feelings, and experience—to be heard. This is scholarly education at its finest.” Micki, LCC student

“Nothing has challenged me the way that teaching poetry has. There is a reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning; one cannot happen without the other. Since I started teaching the Poet in the City workshop this last July, I have become a braver poet, a more articulate speaker, a more capable teacher, and a more open-minded student.”
Heather, LCC student