Just Buffalo Literary Center

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[Student Post]: Sage Returns from Kenyon Young Writers!

by Sage

I recently returned from a 2 week trip to the Kenyon College Young Writer’s summer program, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had!

The other 100 writers and I spent two weeks living in the village of Gambier, Ohio, residing in the McBride dorms of Kenyon’s expansive but homey campus; drinking iced lattes from Wiggins St. Coffee, exploring the graveyard behind Brandi Hall, and most importantly, writing like we’ve never written before. 

My instructor, Alyssa Ogi, pushed my small class group and I to write as our best selves, honestly and openly, and to challenge our ways of writing in order to improve. We began each of our three daily classes with a free write, then spent time sharing and looking at pieces from the Kenyon Review, which would serve as the basis for many of our prompts. Having such a specific class schedule with an environment dedicated solely for writing allowed me to write some of the best work I’ve ever written, and the most as well! I even filled my notebook for the first time EVER! 

My time wasn’t just spent writing however; we were given plenty of free time to explore the village, have a talent show, play ping pong in the common room, do the boys’ makeup, and meet the campus cat, who we promptly named Barbecue! 

KYW allowed me to expand my own personal writing skills and to meet a new group of people who share the same passion as me! We were all given the space and encouragement to share our writing with each other and form life-lasting friendships, bonding over rainy Ohio days and sharing our rough free writes in the McBride kitchen during our breaks. At the end of the program, we were all given copies of our KYW session’s anthology, which was made completely student run! As we all departed with sad goodbyes on the last day, we were left with a roughly 300 page long anthology of everyone’s work, a reminder of our time and skill at Kenyon!

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JBWC Summer Fellow Updates

TRINITY

As I’ve been working on my creative project, I’ve had a lot of success with some more unconventional ways of songwriting. Using the cut-up method like David Bowie did for many of his pieces has yielded interesting results for my own work. So far, I haven’t run into a lot of trouble coming up with inspiration, but I’m sure as I continue to write I may face some struggles with writing pieces that are cohesive yet all uniquely different. I hope to write about 12 songs in total, and have 5 written pieces with 2 of them developed into song with guitar accompaniment. The overarching theme of my project being the relationship between myself and nature has helped me to explore a lot of interpretations of that relationship. Some pieces expressing the natural instinct to love, and some reflecting the beauty of chaos in the natural world. 

Recently, I met with local singer, songwriter, and musician Savannah King for a short interview to ask her about her own experiences with writing. I asked her questions about her songwriting process, what she does when she gets writers block, and the most difficult parts of writing an album. She offered me some great advice about finding inspiration in other musicians, and making sure there’s always time to write. 

I look forward to continuing this creative project and using Savannah’s advice and influence as this process continues. 

MAYA

So far, this project has proven to have a mind of its own. I kickstarted my writing process by not only focusing on social issues facing our world right now, but also on the way history repeats itself. I started by reading Annette Daniels Taylor’s Got Beef, a poem that addresses the plight of black people with a sort of indignation, by repeating the line “Yeah, we got beef.” From there, I was reminded of a video of Angela Davis, which in my mind has a similar tone, in which she’s asked (while in prison) whether or not she approves of violence. A portion of her answer went as follows:

Angela Davis On Violence

Standout Quote: “the person asking that question [if she approves of violence] has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through… since the time the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa.”

Inspired by Angela and her matter-of-factness, I wrote my first poem, entitled Dramatic Irony. Here’s a snippet of that piece:

do I approve of violence?

a better question would be how do you cope?

ask me again if I approve of violence,

when at any moment I can expect to be attacked.

shot, seized, shaken, shattered, bruised, battered

So when you ask me if I approve of violence,

I mean that just doesn’t make any sense at all.

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[Intern Post]: Reflections on Spotlight On Youth Open Mic

by Hannah

On May 16th, 2018 young artists entered  Shea’s Smith Theatre for this month’s Spotlight on Youth, an open mic series dedicated to highlighting the voices of youth in Buffalo’s art scene. This Wednesday’s audience witnessed Anthony, a dancer from Buffalo Center of Arts and Technology, as a lively host, introducing poets, musicians, spoken word artists, actors, and singers. Among these performers was Teen Reality Theater, a group of actors and educators who commonly participate at the open mic. At the end of their performance, they remarked “When we stand together, we’re a force to be reckoned with,” a comment embodying what the series advocates for: a future that listens to the voices of everybody, regardless of age, sexuality, gender, religion, or level of craft.

SOY youth host and dancer, Anthony (photo credit: Birch)

At the heart of Spotlight on Youth’s ideology lies a strong commitment to opportunities for everybody to use their voice to spread positivity and youth performers yet again proved their commitment to this mission as they took the stage, discussing topics like suicide prevention, relationships, women’s history, and America’s political scene. Rallying around these important themes, original songs, dance routines, spoken word, and music covers echoed throughout the theater.

rapper/poet, Jahton (photo credit: Birch)

When youth from organizations around the city gather together, it promotes a community of collaboration as artists talk to each other and exchange ideas in ways that they otherwise may not have. For example, dancers from Buffalo Center of Arts and Technology interact with writers from Just Buffalo Writing Center who meet performers from Teen Reality Theater, forming a closer knit circle of creative minds, rallying around the importance of supporting each other, getting their voices heard, and free pizza. The next Spotlight on Youth event will be on July 18th. You must be associated with a partnered organization or bring school ID to attend.

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Meet the New JBWC Summer Fellows: Trinity & Maya

This summer at the JBWC, we were able to hire two young writers to be Just Buffalo Writing Center fellows. After a competitive application process, we chose Trinity Ridout and Maya Simmons. Trinity and Maya will be working on creative writing projects and helping Just Buffalo with its summer programming! 

ABOUT TRINITY

As a young writer, musician, and long term attendee of the Just Buffalo Writing Center, I’m very excited to begin this fellowship. My name is Trinity and I’m going to be a senior at City Honors High School this fall. I’ve been interested in reading and writing since my early childhood and hope to continue pursuing my love of literature as long as I can. I’m a singer/songwriter and the creative project I’m taking on during this fellowship is writing an album.

I’ve been writing songs for about two years, and I’m taking this opportunity to delve deeper into the world of musicianship. The focus of my album will be humankind in association with nature and self portraiture through my experience of the natural world. I hope to develop a storytelling aspect to my discography and write these songs as a personal journey within the relationship with nature. 

This project is heavily inspired by Terry Tempest William’s The Hour of Land which describes her relationships with several national parks. A personal connection with the outdoors and wildlife is something I think everyone should strive for, and is something I’m trying to create while living in an urban area. My style of songwriting is folk-inspired, and I play all my music on acoustic guitar. I grew up listening to folk music at local music festivals and concerts where family friends performed in a zydeco band. This creative project is going to be very reminiscent of my own experiences with nature and music, especially from my childhood, and I hope that it’s something other people will be able to connect with.

“Humility is born in wildness”-Terry Tempest Williams

ABOUT MAYA

My name is Maya Simmons. I recently graduated from Buffalo Seminary and am headed to D.C. to attend Howard University in the fall. During my time as a fellow, I aim to complete a project that will help me further explore the way art and activism intersect. My plan is to write a series of poems, each one based on a book or article in which the themes address a social issue facing our world currently. With each poem, my goal is to describe the core of the issue, and the emotions associated with it. I want to capture the tone and voice of the piece that inspired me, while also infusing my own. 

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates is one who’s seemed to have mastered the intersection of art and activism; his work inspires me often. Recently, I read an article he wrote for the Atlantic entitled “I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye.” The piece addresses the responsibility of black celebrities, and what their success means for the black community at large. Coates captures feelings of desperation; black communities are in desperate need of hope, and of heroes. Where does this need stem from? These are the types of issues, emotions, and questions my project aims to address. 

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INTERN POST: Dream Rituals

by Kareem (& Robin)

On Tuesday, May 15th and Thursday, May 17th, Mathias Svalina joined us at the JBWC to continue his workshop series. On Tuesday, Mathias talked with students about what the meaning of a ritual is. Why do we have them? What purpose do they serve? He also talked with students about where they write, and why. Most responses were some variant of “at the writing center,” “in my bed,” and “because it clears my mind.”

Mathias then assigned students a task. “For the next 21 days, keep two daily writing rituals: one in the morning & one for the afternoon/evening.” 

For the morning, he asked participants to keep a notebook and writing utensil next to their bed. Right when they wake up, before they look at their phones or do anything else, he told them to take five minutes to write 5-10 lines.

For the evening/afternoon ritual, he gave them a list of ideas but encouraged them to also create their own process. Some of the possible tasks he mentioned included combining writing with “a physical activity that gets you out of your current routine & you can repeat the same way every day” and “a research ritual that has you looking up the same category of thing every day (a spell, an endangered language, a painting by the same artist.” He also shared a few of Bernadette Mayer’s journal suggestions.

On Thursday, Mathias continued the workshop with a series of questions about the daily practices. Students who had been participating shared their processes and questioned the concepts of good and bad quality in literature and writing. This sprouted conversations of object significance and metaphorical logic. Students and instructors alike then dove into an exploration of Bhatnagar’s Instrument-A-Day project and Noah Scholin’s Skull-A-Day project, both developed around daily practices. Finally, those who had done the morning writing rituals shared their creations.

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INTERN POST: Dream Poems with Mathias Svalina

by Darren 

Just Buffalo is thrilled to host visiting poet, teaching artist, and dream delivery-er, Mathias Svalina for the month of May. Mathias will be running his Dream Delivery Service while in town and teaching a series of workshops. 

More about Mathias:

Mathias Svalina is a poetry writer from Chicago, Illinois. A teacher of literature and an author, another of his outstanding contributions to society lies within his Dream Delivery Service, a unique system in which he travels around to various cities for a month at a time. Subscribers, who sign up via his website pay for him to write their “dreams”, or, more exclusively “nightmares” each night while he’s in town, which he  then hand-delivers via bike, or, if out of town, he sends through the mail. Svalina’s has published multiple books of poetry, including Destruction Myth, The Viral Lease, and The Wine-Dark Sea.  

DREAM LOGIC WORKSHOP

Mathias’ first workshop was described as Dream Poems & Poems as Dreams. During the workshop, we explored the creative potential of dreams. We wrote poems & flash fiction based on elements of our actual dreams, & applied dream-logic to our lived experiences, resulting in surrealist works that were simultaneously silly, fun, & profound.

Notable Quotations from Mathias:

“The thing poetry teaches us is how to expand beyond the rational.”

“If you want to write about big ideas, go into small details. And if you want to write about something small/mundane, go big, get weird.”

“I was broke. Although I wish I could do it for free, it’s kind of a job. I wanted to get out of being part of institutions I didn’t believe in. I, mostly, believe in myself.” (when asked why he started the Dream Delivery Service)

Prompt:

Write down the name of a famous figure.

Write down an object you can hold with your hands.

Begin writing with the phrase, “I am in _________ (a public place).

Then write what you’re doing in that place. Include one very specific sensory detail.

Hand your famous figure to the person on your right and your object to the person on the left.

Write what you’ve been given into your story by having the famous figure hand you the object.

Finally, write what you do with the object (without including the reasoning).

Student Writing: Trinity

I am on the bus. I’m looking out the window

and listening to music. I’m trying not to fall asleep. I see

and hear the fluorescent lights. They pierce my eyes like a tattoo gun,

berating their image in my mind.

A fly hovers near, making the same buzz as the lights.

The bus driver is looking at me in the rearview mirror.

F. Scott Fitzgerald walks up to me

and hands me a wilted flower.

He sits down next to me,

he says he loves me.

I eat the flower,

and it tastes like oranges.

I tell him I do not love him,

I tell him go back home to Zelda.

He tells me she is dead, he hands me

another wilted flower;

this one tastes like strawberries.

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Meet the New JBWC City Honors Interns!

This month, five seniors from City Honors High School will be interning with the Just Buffalo Writing Center. They’ll be helping us come up with writing prompts, beautifying our space, researching, and creating all kinds of content on our social media accounts. Their first task: this post! 

GET TO KNOW ATES

What are you excited to do as an intern?

After years of ceaseless pestering from friends, tenth-grade-me finally relented and joined in a casual Thursday session at Just Buffalo, expecting nothing. Then I came back on Tuesday, and the Thursday after, and the weeks and months after that. It’s been a good if, unfortunately, inconsistent two years, growing as a person and a writer and getting used to being a social, talking, critically aware human being. More than just convenience, I’d like to use this internship to give back to the good people and ideas I’ve grown attached to here.

What are doing in the fall?

I’ll be a freshman at Emerson College in Boston in the fall. I hope to further mature my stories there and far into the future.

Fun fact, or random fact, or some kind of fact about you or not about you?

I make terrible movies and I’m allergic to grass, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

GET TO KNOW DARREN

What are you excited to do as an intern?

I was introduced to the JBWC through a friend recommendation. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I ended up coming back. Although unfortunately falling to the common fallacy of inconsistency, I, overall, love this center, the personnel here and look forward to the opportunity to help out here more often.

What are doing in the fall?

I’ll be going to RIT in the Fall, for Psychology and Game Design. (Yes I am aware of how odd that intersection is.)

Fun fact, or random fact, or some kind of fact about you or not about you?

The Medical term for a gunshot wound, GSW, is a nonsensical if not superfluous abbreviation as it has 2 more syllables than the original term.

GET TO KNOW AARON

What are you excited to do as an intern?

Since I’ve been attending Just Buffalo for a couple of years, I figured that the internship would be a good way for me to give back to the center. I hope that I don’t mess it up too badly.

What are doing in the fall?

I’m attending UB in the fall, and majoring in psychology.

Fun fact, or random fact, or some kind of fact about you or not about you?

A fun fact about me is that I’m very bad at thinking about fun facts about myself.

GET TO KNOW KAREEM

What are you excited to do as an intern?

I have been attending Just Buffalo on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past two and a half years. Basically, it’s become my second home. I hope to help create that feeling of acceptance and comfort for other kids and assist them in their writing goals.

What are you doing in the fall?

I’m attending Temple University in Philadelphia in the fall.

Fun fact, or random fact, or some kind of fact about you or not about you?

I’ve been to over 20 concerts in Buffalo during my high school years.

GET TO KNOW HANNAH

What are you excited to do as an intern?

I love Just Buffalo and have been working as a Youth Ambassador for the past few years. I hope that throughout my internship I can continue to do all the fun, cool, creative things like pre-workshops and social media management, but also learn more about non-profits. I hope to get involved with grant writing and organizational things.

What are you doing in the fall?

In the fall I’m attending Binghamton University’s Scholar Program as an English/Creative Writing major. While at university, I hope to study foreign language.

Fun fact, or random fact, or some kind of fact about you or not about you?

I absolutely hate the word “borrow” because I can never pronounce it. Much prefer “lend.”

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Congrats to Buffalo Seminary student and JBWC participant, Maya Simmons, who recently won 2nd place for her poem, “On This Road,” in the 41st Anniversary Carter G. Woodson Contest: A Salute to Buffalo’s Freedom Wall! The piece is inspired by activist and author, Angela Davis.

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Spotlight on JBWC Young Writer: Reatha Newman

Reatha is a senior at Hutch Tech and a frequent participant in JBWC’s Open Workshop sessions. During Open Workshops, JBWC staff & volunteers offer young writers small group/individualized assistance with ongoing writing projects. We can also provide young writers with publication/contest submission support and individualized reading lists. Many young writers are content to use the time simply working on their craft!

When or why did you start writing or when did you know you were a writer? I started my first official novel when I was 12 and it was because I wanted to read it.

Discuss your current writing projects? I am currently writing two novels. One is a sci-fi action novel about two werewolf sisters kidnapped when they were younger so that this group could perform experiments on them. The other is about a woman who is the heir to a billion dollar company coming out of hiding after her entire family was killed in a home invasion seven years ago.

What have been some of the joys and challenges of working on a project for so long? Some of the joys of working on something like this for so long is that your writing kinda matures as you do and it helped me to develop the plot and characters to a fuller extent and helped me recognize the importance of things I might have overlooked before, like flaws in a character.

The challenges come from the same reason. As you mature your expectations for your writing do as well so the challenges came when it was time to edit or fix something or add a detail in a previous chapter and I hated the way it was written so I end up re-writing it and it becomes an endless cycle of critiquing.

What is your writing process? My writing process is simple. It starts with a thought and the thought can come from anything ranging from music and reading or even driving around or certain social situations. After that I start plotting the chapter so I break out my legal pad and pen and begin planning what I want to happen in whatever chapter I happen to be focusing on. After that I just start writing on my laptop.

What are some of your favorite books/writers? My all time favorite books are the entire Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling and the entire Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas.

What are some of your writing goals or aspirations? My main writing goal is to finish one of my novels. Because of how long I’ve been writing them, it can sometimes seem like they never end.

Tips for young writers? Find a second opinion. Your work can become boring to you if you’ve been reading it over and over so sometimes it takes a different perspective to help you move along.

Why do you come to JBWC? What do you do when you’re here? I come to JBWC because it is the only place for me to connect with other writers. Before coming here I had never gotten an opinion or even let anyone outside of my family read my writing. It gave me new ways to look at my stories and it helped me develop new techniques while writing. While I’m there I am almost always getting opinions on my writing.

An Excerpt from Green is the Color of Envy

The Northern Ball: Daniel Davis

Tonight was The Northern Ball. It was the annual ball held in honor of the North family after the tragedy that occurred seven years ago. I was still a kid when I heard about it. I hadn’t quite believed it. Ever since I had been in diapers our families had always been close. I used to play football with their older brother Camelot and taught their younger one, Caesar, how to play baseball.

We hadn’t stayed as close as we had been. We all went to the same school so it was a ‘hi’ when I see you type of situation. Or if we were having a family function or vacation together, which happened often, we would talk and joke around. I remember their father Luke North. He was an amazing man. He and my father were like brothers. When we heard about the home invasion no one quite believed it.

We were out of town when it happened. On vacation…

No one really heard what happened to Avalon. She wasn’t seen leaving the hospital. No one heard if she died. Many people believed she killed herself from the grief, some others say she was shipped to a mental institution because of the severe PTSD and constant mental breakdowns. It was also a common belief that she moved to Africa and lived in some village helping people like her father did.

…It had all simmered down enough that you could turn on the TV without hearing it being mentioned on every channel or better yet every social media app. That was, of course, until the video emerged. Someone-one of the intruders had made it. A video of that night in the house that captured everything. After a few days the FBI had it purged from the Internet but we all had seen it already. People had saved it to their phones. I’d only seen the beginning but that was enough for me. I couldn’t watch the rest because it was horrific. I hoped-prayed that she was out there somewhere safe and making a new life for herself because after what I’d seen in that video, after what happened to her, I don’t know how anyone could move on from that.

However, the video lead to several arrests and soon enough the men behind the attacks were apprehended and arrested and charged with the massacre of the Northern family and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.

I was a bit puzzled though I’ll admit, as to how a company like Northern Enterprises could go bankrupt in such a short amount of time. I knew deep down that it was bullshit but there was truly nothing any of us could do. Tonight when they auction off the few remaining divisions like charities, schools, hospitals, etc, of Northern Enterprises I’m gonna buy one and my father will purchase two so at least some part of Northern Enterprises still lives with us.

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JBWC Young Writer Book Recommendations

This week a visitor asked our young writers what books they recommend. We thought you might want to know!

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

“On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.In the tradition of Before I Fall and If I Stay, They Both Die at the End is a tour de force from acclaimed author Adam Silvera, whose debut, More Happy Than Not, the New York Times called ‘profound.’”

May Bird and the Ever After (series) by Jodi Lynn Anderson

“Most people aren’t very comfortable in the woods, but the woods of Briery Swamp fit May Bird like a fuzzy mitten. There, she is safe from school and the taunts and teases of kids who don’t understand her. Hidden in the trees, May is a warrior princess, and her cat, Somber Kitty, is her brave guardian.  Then May falls into the lake. When she crawls out, May finds herself in a world that most certainly does not feel like a fuzzy mitten. In fact it is a place few living people have ever seen. Here, towns glow blue beneath zipping stars and the people – people? – walk through walls. Here the Book of the Dead holds the answers to everything in the universe. And here, if May is discovered, the horrifyingly evil Bo Cleevil will turn her into nothing.  May Bird must get out.  Fast.  Within these pages, Jodi Lynn Anderson shares with us the beginning of May Bird’s daring journey into the Ever After, a haunting place where true friends – and one terrible foe – await her on every corner.”

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

“Citizen recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seemingly slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV—everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named “post-race” society.”

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

“Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance.“

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This Week at the JBWC: Strings & Words & Fellowships & Friendships

This week we’re diving into part two of our workshop combining words and strings, and have and exciting fellowship opportunity young writers might be interested in!

Quote/Pic of Last Week:

​(photo credit: Sage)

All of you guys are absolutely amazing! I couldn’t have asked for a better community of nerds!

-Lucy, after her performance at the JBWC Showcase. She performed alongside graduating writers Kareem and Carson. Thanks to all who came out!

TUESDAY, MAY 1 (3:30-6:00pm) and THURSDAY, MAY 3 (3:30-6:00pm)

String and Word Workshop with Nina

What emerges between string and word and us? How might a focus on points of connection and the space emerging between influence or create ways to share poetry? In this workshop we’ll co-imagine and create an installation for display and/or a performance to consider sharing at this year’s Indeterminacy Festival.

Presented in relation to this year’s Indeterminacy Festival—May 14-20, Silo City The Indeterminacy Festival will go into its second year, exploring emergence by using string as the primary medium with which to enact the felt-experience of threading, stretching, connecting, and binding new ideas into an interconnected whole.

OTHER STUFFS

First Ever JBWC Summer Camp!!!

Fiction, poetry, songs, comics, plays: everything is fair game! While we’ll spend a good amount of time reading and writing together in the window-filled JBWC loft overlooking downtown Buffalo, this camp will be anything but sedentary. Every day we’ll get out of our chairs, grab our notebooks, and get moving. Maybe we’ll do a little yoga. Maybe we’ll go on a literary “scavenger hunt.” Each session will present a new series of adventures! Participants will walk away with a deeper understanding of what makes writing “good”, while creating a chapbook full of their creations.

WHEN: July 16-July 20th.

Register here.

First Ever JBWC PAID Summer Fellowship

The Just Buffalo Writing Center youth fellowship is an opportunity for a motivated young writer between the ages of 16 and 18 that is interested in developing their craft and exploring professional avenues into the literary arts. The summer fellow will be based at Just Buffalo’s Writing Center, a free creative writing center for teens, and will have the opportunity to play a role in the development and growth of the JBWC’s summer programs and events. The fellow will be offered a $1,150 stipend and will be required to complete a creative writing project during the 8-week fellowship during July and August 2018.

Apply by May 11th. More info here.

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This Week at JBWC: Songwriting, Open Workshop, and JUNOT DIAZ VISIT OMG

OMG this week is jam-packed and super fun and exciting and you should absolutely force yourself to go out into this awful, disgusting “spring” weather and join us because seriously how else are you going to pretend it isn’t an icy, snowy mess out there, am I right?!

____________________

Quote of Last Week:

soft, fleshy legs are not strong enough

to make the trek to robo heaven.

those pink fingers couldn’t stand the cold

of your lover’s chrome cheeks.

sell your soul to me girl.

-from the poem “SciFi Little Mermaid” written by Trinity during our field trip to El Museo last week to view Andie Jairam’s Kweku Anansi Fables exhibit.

____________________

TUESDAY, APRIL 17 (3:30-6:00pm)

Adventure State: Songwriting with Hussalonia

This workshop invites writers, musicians, hip-hop artists, and anyone else to join us to explore the many pathways of composing a song through the examination of rhythm, melody, voice, lyrics, and composition. Each workshop will be led by a different Buffalo songwriter, lyricist, or musician. Feel free to bring your instrument of choice, though no instruments are required.

Hussalonia is a “pop music cult” owned by Nefarico™, a soap company. It is largely the work of one, prolific, multi-instrumentalist, home-recording artist (known only as the Hussalonia Founder) who creates concise, literate, art-pop in the spirit of ‘60s beat and record-store-clerk-indie-post-punk-singer-songwriter-whatever-nes.

Pre-Workshop:

Rap/poetry/songwriting with Jahton! Also, it is JBWC’s 4-year anniversary! Maybe we’ll have some cupcakes or something.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18 (3:30-5:30pm)

Open Workshop

You heard us right! We are holding two open workshop sessions in a row this month due to some scheduling conflicts. Last week, a bunch of people worked on their novels. Someone else worked on a poem for a contest and got some feedback. What will you get into this week? We’re here to help or give you some space!

THURSDAY, APRIL 19 (3:30-6:00pm)

Adventure State: Songwriting with Hussalonia

Workshop continued…See above.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20 (3:30-4:30pm)

PULITIZER-PRIZE WINNING JUNOT DIAZ VISITS JBWC

Junot Diaz will talk with you about writing and answer any questions you might have for him! This is a special opportunity just for JBWC writers and a few select students from local schools. Don’t miss it! It’s kinda a big deal.

About Junot Diaz:

Born in the Dominican Republic, Díaz immigrated to New Jersey when he was 6 years old. As a non-native speaker, Díaz mastered the English language as a young boy by reading—walking four miles, each way, to his public library to immerse himself in the world of books. Now a Professor of Writing at MIT, his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earned him a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, and was named TIME Magazine’s Best Book of the Year. More recently, critics named this bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny portrait of a multigenerational family with its “mash-up of Dominican history, comics, sci-fi, [and] magic realism” “the best novel of the 21st century to date.”

All are also encouraged to attend Diaz’s BABEL talk at Kleinhans in the evening! Student tickets are only $10.

CONTEST OPPORTUNITY

Peach Mag’s Poetry Contest

Due April 20th. $500 prize! Judged by Morgan Parker. All ages.

SAVE THE DATE STILL

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This Week at JBWC: A visit with Bao Phi, Field Trip to El Museo and More!

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Quote of Last Week:

written by Alaya during our warm up for the JBWC Poet Invasion at the Albright-Knox last Friday

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TUESDAY, APRIL 10 (3:30-6:00pm)

Special Visit with Poet, Bao Phi

Bao Phi was born in Vietnam, grew up in Minneapolis, and graduated from Macalester College with a degree in English. He is a poet, spoken-word artist, and community activist, a two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist, and his work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Sông I Sing and Thousand Star Hotel and a children’s book, A Different Pond. He is Program Director at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, where he coordinates a number of programs, including the Equilibrium series, which was awarded an Anti-Racism Initiative award.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11 (3:30-6:00pm)

Open Workshop

Work on a novel, write a poem, raid our supply cabinet and make some cool art, write that essay for school you’ve been avoiding, read a book, talk about that podcast you want to start, think about words. Writers on hand to give you feedback if you’re looking for it!

THURSDAY, APRIL 12 (3:30-6:00pm)

Field Trip to El Museo Art Gallery: History, Sci-Fi, Magical Realism, Racial Justice, Junot Diaz

“…If it wasn’t for race, X-Men doesn’t make sense…Star Wars doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the extermination of so many indigenous nations…Without [people of color] as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understand that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together.” -Junot Diaz

During this workshop, participants will explore the connections between history and sci-fi, considering the realities that fuel fantasy. To inspire our writings, we’ll take a field trip to El Museo art gallery to check out Andie Jairam’s Kweku Anansi Fables exhibit and explore excerpts of Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

*We’ll leave the JBWC at 4pm and take the train to the gallery. Train fare provided. Students should be picked up from JBWC at 6pm.

SAVE THE DATE

Have you encouraged a friend (or hopeful friend) to visit the JBWC lately? If not, you should!

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Political Pranksters: An Artivism Workshop with Adam Drury

With April Fools’ Day approaching, this week at the JBWC teaching artist Adam Drury led another Artivism workshop. This one was inspired by the political pranksters, the Yes Men and invited young writers to create hilarious, culture jamming “pranks” that inspire and motivate people to take positive action for what they believe in.

After viewing a few clips of the Yes Men’s most recent activist antics, Adam encouraged participants to consider causes that are important to them and the powerful entities that might get in the way of meaningful solutions.

Here’s one prompt from the workshop:

PERFECT PITCH Example: Halliburton SurvivaBall™

Despite all this talk of technological innovation, the biggest, most epic, most pressing and urgent problems of our time are still in search of their solutions. The entities responsible for these problems always say they have the answer, but things are just getting worse!

So you decide to highlight all the #fails of corporate solutions by proposing a hilarious, absurd, ironic, farcical solution of your own.

You’ve tricked a group of investors and business leaders into hearing you out. Pitch your perfect idea for solving X with a brilliant, ingenious solution that highlights how little is actually being done to make things better.

STUDENT EXAMPLES

Working in groups, students decided to draw attention to issues involving standardized testing and school safety measures in response to recent school shootings. Students began by creating fake interest groups/organizations that might be proposing the absurd solutions they brainstormed.

Lucy and Eden became spokespeople for Students Helping Incentivize Testing. They presented a new incentive program that would reward students receiving high test scores with luxuries such as paper and counseling services. Depending on their classes’ success, teachers would receive cash bonuses or paycheck deductions. Check out their press conference here.

Sage, Trinity, and Carson became spokespeople for the Association for Student Safety. Their goal was to combine testing with school safety by requiring students to take standardized tests on the use of weapons and how to protect their school in the case of an intruder. Those with high scores receive weapons, those with low scores receive band-aids. Here’s their press conference.

To reiterate, our students would like us to remind you that these are SATIRICAL videos. This is dark comedy, folks, for a dark time.

The late writer Ursula Le Guin once said that “resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art: the art of words.” These Artivism workshops give young writers a space to experiment and play with the many ways their words can improve their communities and change their world.

[justbuffalowritingcenter-blog]

Hoa Nguyen Visits Just Buffalo

by JB volunteer, Megan Tafelski and JBWC Coordinator, Robin Jordan

Recently, innovative poet and teacher, Hoa Nguyen, visited Just Buffalo to lead a writing workshop for young writers at the JBWC and to give a reading as part of our STUDIO reading series.

To prepare students for Nguyen’s visit, we began the workshop by looking at the poet’s sonnet “They Sell You What Disappears,” which discusses sustainability, globalism, and womanhood. JBWC coordinator, Robin, crafted a prompt inspired by Nguyen’s poem that asked students to “think about something in this room that has been made, harvested, or crafted by someone. Tell a story connected to that object’s journey before it reached you or, perhaps, after it is of use.

nothing nothing nothing nothing

nothing nothing

nothing

nothing

ALL

  Color twanged, color song

Euphony crusted

The newest new thing

soon blinked like blue ink

-Josh (writing about ink)

After being stuck at the Canada/US border for over 45 minutes, Hoa Nguyen joined the Just Buffalo Writing Center workshop with the fire horse energy that she is known for and led the workshop before her jacket was even off. She brought her Tarot cards, which prove to be her traditional travel companion. As the students begin writing she states, “the cards are saying revisions.”

To accomplish these pronounced revisions, she has each student begin by reading their poem backwards. In most cases, the poems sound even more powerful when read in the reverse. Hoa states “the first thing you say is so often the last thing you actually want to say.” This powerful statement resonated with all the young writers in the room.

The next poem of focus was Nguyen’s “Blousy Guitar.” This poem demonstrates the less obvious slant rhyme relationship between words. Hoa gave the students 60 seconds to create their own sound cloud with ten tangible words, 5 slant rhymes, verbs, and food items. Then she challenged the writers to use their list to create a love poem.

Finally, she shared the poem “Sleep” by James Schuyler as a particular favorite that emulates “point and click poetics” which is when the poet doesn’t include all the sinew between ideas in a poem. First, she had writers create a quadrant of topics that included: 5 things you did this week, 5 things you saw this week, 5 things you heard this week, and a doodle that describes your week. To mentally prepare, she asked students to take 60 seconds to “clear the pop ups out of their head by spiraling on the page.” The final prompt was to create a poem that collaged their quadrant notes.

These methods were defined as a great tool to overcome writer’s block. They can also be used as a revision tool in order to add another dimension to a piece of writing. The results were impressive!

A protest against metal inside of our children’s

flesh at our school with signs on Wednesday.

Trying to paraphrase in poem creation class,

“Write something down. Something someone said to you.”

Schoolwork, hand in a rod-like cast, bones

warped and fingers losing dexterity as they

continue past midnight.

Copper penny clanging down a machine of gears.

A film of perception above everything,

windows to see sharply break and shard,

get into eyes, making headache.

Dirty, gum-laden sidewalk, tobacco breath.

A shower of steam, enshrouded so you

almost believe you can pull your hair back.

  -Eden

The workshop then transitioned into a well-attended poetic showcase featuring poets Ryan Kaveh Sheldon, Sasha Steensen, and Hoa Nguyen. Sheldon began the series with “Mechanical Turk: An Essay.” As an Iranian-American writer, his work can be described as dark, stormy, open, difficult, and exposed.

Sasha took the stage next to celebrate the release of her fourth book, Gatherest. Gatherest contains themes of water, fire, and erotics and was mainly written during the 40 days of lent. Her work is often structured as a 22-line poem, with 11 syllables for each line. Her reading was passionate, temporal, and fierce. She mentioned a quote that easily vibrates within the room: “I make many things, not least among them ERRORS.”

Hoa finished the evening with readings from her latest work Violent Energy Ingots, stemming from her recent visit to Vietnam, where she was born and where her mother was raised. Her poems are widely recognized as describing dis-ease, rupture, things frayed, and grief. Similar to her teachings in the earlier part of the day, many of her pieces were sonnets. (She mentioned she seemed to be “stuck on sonnets” or “the little song.”) Hoa finished her reading by sharing some of her new work and with this last authoritative statement: “The advice was not fail better, but fair better.”

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STUDENT POST: A Writing Prompt inspired by Sufjan Stevens’ song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”

Prompt and Tumblr post by JBWC young writer, Kareem

On March 6, 2018, I led a pre-workshop centered around analyzing and discussing the song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” by musician Sufjan Stevens. The song, which explores the infamous serial killer’s actions and psychology, struck a chord with some students, who managed to write response pieces based on four prompts provided to them, after watching the music video and listening to the song.

Here are the prompts:

Prompt #1: Write a poem, song, or other piece about something or someone that most people would overlook; an unlikely subject. Write about their point of view, history, and how they have impacted the world.

Prompt #2: Write a poem, song, or other piece inspired by the imagery shown in the music video; how it made you feel possibly, or how it pertains to the message and tone of the song.

Prompt #3: Write a poem, song, or other piece in which the subject matter is dark, but the diction and context makes it seem happier and lighter.

Prompt #4:  This one’s more personal: Write a song, poem, or other piece about something that no one knows about you. Write about a secret. If you would like, write it in a way that leaves the reader guessing as to what your secret is.

And below are some excerpts from the student responses to the harrowing song, based off of the prompt of their choice.

Prompt #1: Carson

Think about clowns. There are people who have dedicated their lives to clowning. Perhaps they are members of the World Clown Association, which is a real thing. Perhaps they feel that society persecutes with its horror movies and Halloween costumes. “My profession isn’t just a costume,” a dedicated clown might say, “and it’s certainly not something to be demonized and mocked.” I feel bad for clowns… But only a little. Because they are horrible and scary and everything that everyone thinks they are. Clowns are not funny. That’s the bottom line.

Prompt #3: Miles

I don’t want the roses to wilt, so I get them some water. I’m sure the runner didn’t need his; My flowers are thirsty too.

Prompt #4: Ryan

“Sharp chin! Flat chest! Deep voice!” It’s so close, it’s right under my knees! I try to look for something to pry open the floor. A sledgehammer or something! Then I hear my mother’s voice…

“C’mon, [name redacted], we have to go!” I wipe my tears and walk out, My knees dirty and mouth shut.”

Prompt #4: Alaya

Our eyes open wide as we enter the same world, One dream at a time…

…What is there to stop you if it isn’t even real? Nobody needs to know.

Above: Musician Sufjan Stevens

Below: Serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr., the subject of Stevens’ song.

Link to the original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otx49Ko3fxw