Recap: In Front of Strangers I Sing | Badgerblog

Sunday was a beautiful day: the damp and cold weather finally moved on and the sun sprang into the sky, just in time for our Badgerdog writers, teaching artists, and supporters to gather into Ballet Austin?s AustinVentures Studio Theatre for our event: In Front of Strangers I Sing.

ChorusAustin began the afternoon with a haunting and hopeful performance of ?The Journey Home.?

In her introduction, Cecily Sailer, Badgerdog?s Education Programs Manager, explained the importance of the Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project, and how, as a literary arts non-profit, Badgerdog approached its message:

We invited our writers-in-residence, who are leading creative writing workshops in more than 25 schools and community centers across Central Texas, to introduce to their students ?poets of witness,? writers like Osip Mandelstam, Federico Garcia Lorca, Miklos Radnoti, and Maya Angelou. These writers suffered through civil strife, war, genocide, house arrest, wrongful imprisonment, racial discrimination, and life under repressive regimes. The poetry they authored remains as witness to the frightening conditions in which they lived, and it reveals the power and importance of language in tracing truth and expressing resilience and hope.

Our own students?writers of all ages?those in fourth-grade, middle school, and high school classrooms in Austin, Manor, and Del Vale ISDs, as well as adult writers who work with us in community centers and libraries, were then invited to respond to the work of the witness poets. In some cases, our students were asked to imagine the reality of imprisonment, the loss of freedom; others were asked to contemplate the grave sacrifices demanded by war, or to write a poetic letter to the writer they encountered in the classroom. Many of the poems our students authored left me breathless because they cut to the heart of the sorrow that exists in stories of injustice from around the world. But our students? poems also speak to our collective capacity for empathy and courage.

Cecily also shared with the audience how we came upon the title of our event, from a line in a Paul Celan?s poem ?Night Ray.?

Paul Celan

?Night Ray? includes a series of disturbing images, but it ends with these lines: ?I am lighter: In front of strangers I sing.? It?s as if, in these final words, in this expression, some small burden can be shed, some light can be unearthed and regained.

One-by-one our teaching artists shared with the audience the writers and the work they introduced to their students.

Virginia Reeves spoke about Merce Rodoreda, the Catalan Spanish writer of The Time of the Doves, who survived the Spanish Civil War, exile, a time when books were burned and Catalonians were told: ?Don?t Bark, speak the language of the Spanish Empire.? Virginia and her 4th graders read excerpts from Rodoreda?s novel and discussed how Rodoreda ?put her voice and language into the doves in her book.? Virginia asked her young writers to think about their own voices, the jobs of their voices, and what would happen if they weren?t allowed to use them. Jason, a 4th grader from Oak Springs Elementary, shared his poem with the audience at Ballet Austin:

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Jason?s poem, ?The Dragon that Speaks for the Boy? offers, ?a simple but beautiful line about the?senselessness?of war?: ?Why / is my voice banned ? / Because there was a war / that we lost.?

Cecily Sailer introduced Vincent, a 4th grader at Pioneer Crossing. ?Vincent?s Badgerdog teaching artist, Liz Wyckoff, writes in the introduction to Vincent?s poem in the chapbook: ?We began by discussing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights movement, and nonviolent demonstrations. We also listened to audio clips of three men who?d gone on strike in 1968, all of them Memphis sanitation workers. Their descriptions of dangerous conditions, low pay, and discriminatory treatment brought us closer to a definition of injustice, and just by looking closely at the word, students were able to see ?injury? and relate to unfairness, something hurtful and undeserved?something we have all experienced.? ?Liz introduced her writers to Maya Angelou?s poem ?Still I Rise,? and talked about she overcame injustice in her own life.

Here is Vincent?s poem:

I tried to grasp my mom?s and dad?s
hands but they disappear. I would
search the world for my
parents. I would even search the
universe if I have to. I would
fly to the heavens to search for
my parents. But then I found my
parents?they were in my heart.
The moment was so blissful. I
could have cried until the universe
was filled with my tears.

But the only thing I could
do at that moment was
live a happy life to the
end for my parents who
live in the blissful heaven.

Vincent, 4th grade, Pioneer Crossing

We heard from students in 16 different classrooms: elementary, middle, and high ?school students in Austin, Manor, and Del Valle schools. ?But we also heard the stirring words of our Silver Voices in Ink writers. ?Jenell shared her poem, ?Evil Has Taught Me,? which was written in response to Korkoro, a film depicting the treatment of the Roma people during World War 11. ?The Nazis sent the Roma to concentration camps, but so did the French Vichy government. ?Jenell moving words were a testament to the Roma?s story, which is too often not told.

We published our writers words in this limited edition chapbook, with a?foreword?by Eli Winkelman, executive director of Challah for Hunger, who was cited in Bill Clinton?s Giving as an exemplar of ?compelling? giving.

We are so proud of our writers and our teaching instructors, and we were so thrilled to collaborate with Ballet Austin for this important project. ?We also want to thank everyone who attended and everyone who bought our poetry broadsides. We donated your donations to the?Multicultural Refugee Coalition, an organization here in Austin that does incredibly important work. And finally, a huge thanks to Esteban Rey, who did the beautiful illustrations for the chapbook.

Source: http://www.badgerdog.org/badgerblog/2012/03/14/recap-in-front-of-strangers-i-sing/

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