poetry

Poetry is alive and thriving at the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center

Shayla Brown — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 19:32:48 +0000

Poetry is alive and thriving at the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center Shayla Brown Mon, 06/12/2023 - 15:32

Poetry Daily has two homes. Online, it lives at the url poems.com, where it provides a diverse range of poetry to 570,000 readers across the globe. But its physical home, where it is staffed by many Mason students, is the Watershed Lit: Center for Literacy Engagement and Publishing Practice at ��AV.

Martin Mitchell, Victoria Mendoza, and Nick Ritter making chapbooks for the students at the JDC. Photo by Evan Cantwell/OUB

Within Poetry Daily lives Poetry Alive!, a project initiated by Mason alumna Nicole Tong, MFA ’07, in her position as Fairfax’s first poet laureate.

“I always wanted to use George Mason as a central part of this project. The first iteration of the program had two components: to amplify the message that poets and poetry are alive and thriving, and to use Mason students as mentors for young poets just starting to develop an interest in writing,” said Tong.

Now in its second year, Poetry Alive! is conducting a workshop with the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) under the center’s BETA program, a year-long therapeutic program for male residents aged 14-17.

Peter Streckfus making chapbooks for students at the JDC. Photo by Evan Cantwell/OUB.

“This new program brings young poet-teachers directly into the lives of young people who want to find language for their own stories and who may want to see those stories and their connections with others in a new light as they move forward,” said Peter Streckfus, a co-director of Poetry Daily, one of Tong’s original collaborators on the project, and an associate English professor with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

“The goal of the program is to give the students who live and reside in the JDC more confidence, security and an ability to express themselves in a way that they weren't exposed to before,” said Megan Brooks, a second-year MFA poetry student working with the teenage boys at the center.

For Nick Ritter, a first-year MFA poetry student also working in the program, it was the idea of Poetry Alive! that drew him to Mason.

“I really wanted to teach incarcerated folks if I got the opportunity to do so,” said Ritter. “Having the balance between the pedagogy and the poetry lessons allows me to find different ways to get at the heart of what we're trying to do, which is to give a space for the students to feel safe expressing themselves in different ways.

Martin Mitchell and Victoria Mendoza making chapbooks for the students at the JDC. Photo by Evan Cantwell/OUB.

“We're working with young boys, and there are a lot of masculinity conventions that make it difficult to just express oneself. My role as a teacher is to give them tools [to do that], but also to demonstrate expressing myself,” said Ritter. “Sharing my own writing amongst them [helps] to make them more comfortable, and I've noticed the boys being excited to share their writing with each other.”

As poet laureate, Tong launched the program with initial support from ArtsFairfax, which gave Poetry Daily a new grant earlier this year to continue their efforts in the community.

“As we continue to learn new ways that Poetry Daily can sustain itself as an organization, we also want it to have an impact in the community,” said Sally Keith, a co-director of Poetry Daily and professor of poetry at Mason. “It's been hard because it's a website, so how do you make a website do that work? For that reason, the Poetry Alive! JDC project has been a really rewarding application. It’s a tangible example of how poetry can change a community.”

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Mason’s 2022 Writer-in-Residence speaks about the wonders of language and poetry

Shayla Brown — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 15:47:20 +0000

Mason’s 2022 Writer-in-Residence speaks about the wonders of language and poetry Shayla Brown Thu, 11/03/2022 - 11:47

Photo by Leeya Mehta/Cheuse Center

Elena Medel published her first book of poetry at the age of 16. Now she’s the editorial director of La Bella Varsovia, a publishing house in Madrid that focuses on poetry as well as a successful poet and author.

Medel was hosted by the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center from September 25 to October 15 as ��AV’s 2022 International Writer-in-Residence. She attended four events during her time at Mason and got to interact with both students and faculty. 

“I was telling the students about my experience as a writer. It’s obviously not a universal experience, but maybe it could be useful or interesting to them,” said Medel. “I am a full-time worker, not a professional writer. I spoke about the problems I have when I want to write [but don’t have the time].” 

Medel’s favorite poet from whom she finds inspiration is Federico Garcia Lorca. Her favorite work of Lorca’s, a book of his poetry, is titled “Poet in New York.”  

“When I was a teenager, his poems were really important for me as a writer and also for me as a person,” said Medel. “I think I write poetry because of Lorca.” 

Medel spoke with Spanish language professor Rei Berroa and some of his students about her writing process and her debut novel, “The Wonders.” 

The novel is told through the perspectives of María and Alicia, two women generations apart who face many similar experiences in different ways with different attitudes.  

“When we read a novel with a male main character, we think that the book speaks about the great subjects of humanity. But in the same story told by female voices, it’s like it’s only for female readers; we have this prejudice,” said Medel. “I wanted to talk about universal things like money and social classes, but told by the voices of these women.” 

Medel and Berroa have worked together before when Berroa invited Medel to the Maratón de Poesía del Teatro de la Luna in 2017, a poetry marathon that he and his colleagues began in 1992 to bring together the Spanish poets of the Washington, D.C., area before expanding to include international poets as well.

“We need poetry to survive,” said Berroa. “[I had my] class read ‘The Wonders’ as well as some of her poetry.”

“This is the first time I’ve attended a symposium or book reading anywhere,” said Frankie Romero, a senior foreign languages major with a concentration in Spanish, and one of Berroa’s students. “I found it complemented the class. We got to see a real-world scenario of somebody involved in the writing process and how they go about creating the products they put out there, be it a book, a poem, a short story.”

Students got the opportunity to ask Medel questions during their conversations. “I asked her if she ever suffers writer’s block, and I didn’t quite expect the answer given,” said Romero. “She said that she experiences writer's block every day.”

Her process for overcoming writer’s block is writing about things she remembers, he said. “She would say ‘I remember... when I was a child or when it was raining’ and then all of a sudden, she starts writing naturally.”

“I think poetry is in everything that I write because it’s in the language and the attitude of the writing,” said Medel. “When you write a poem you have to go to the essence of the poem, and I’m trying to do the same in fiction. I try to go to the heart of the story.”

Medel’s residency was sponsored by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain. 

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A New Era: Poetry Daily enters partnership with Mason’s Creative Writing Program

Colleen Rich — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 10:01:00 +0000

A New Era: Poetry Daily enters partnership with Mason’s Creative Writing Program Colleen Rich Fri, 01/31/2020 - 05:01

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