Make Plain Paper Beautiful - The 2021 Pizza Poetry Anthology written by New Orleans Youth by 826 New Orleans

MAKE PLAIN PAPER BEAUTIFUL The 2021 Pizza Poetry Anthology Written By New Orleans Youth

Edited By Kyley Pulphus Designers Cover Design and Images by MILAGROS Interior Layout by Kyley Pulphus 826 New Orleans Staff: Brooke Pickett, Executive Director Kyley Pulphus, Program Director Kush Thompson, Program Manager Rosie Loughran, Community Engagement Coordinator, AmeriCorp VISTA Thea Berry, Communications and Development Coordinator, AmeriCorp VISTA

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction | 7

We’d Be Bored If We Were That Annie Wise | 13

Harlem! Harlem! We Want Harlem Jordan Colin | 9

Pizza Alexander Mickal | 10

Candy Nola Voelke | 10

Ode to a Cheese Grater Simsim Hegazzi | 10

Shooting Star Stagi Watson | 11

Pizza Bee Reynolds Davis | 13

Pizza Time Naomi Pulphus | 13

And All That! Tallulah Gecewich | 14

Loyalty & Love Damond Brown | 14

Mike The Dinosaur Aldaja Mitchell | 14

Untitled

Turn The Light On

Moira Doyle | 11

Amelia Robinson | 15

I’m Smart Madison McBride | 11

You and Me Felix Soria | 15

Up The Mountain Teresa Cashen | 12

Tick Tock Goes the Clock Ariel Stubbs | 12

Acknowledgements | 17 About 826 New Orleans | 18

INTRODUCTION The Pizza Poetry Project is a celebration of National Poetry Month and the power of youth voice. Working with some of the best pizza joints in town, 826 New Orleans

publishes poems of all kinds on pizza boxes around the city. We see poems about love, family, faraway places, animals, games, and of course, pizza. If a young person wants to write about it, we want them to have the space to do so. 826 New Orleans supports the writing of poetry by providing free in-school poetry workshops to area schools, this year done virtually. Poetry activities were also available in the New Orleans Public Library’s take-and-make kits. Additionally, we received submissions online. Each year, hundreds of students participate. Our Young Writers’ Council of high school students selects their favorite poems from grade bands 1st-3rd, 4th-8th, and 9th-12th. The writers of those poems become our Pizza Poet Laureates. This anthology, Make Plain Paper Beautiful, is a small sample of the amazing poems written for the 2021 Pizza Poetry Project. Enjoy!

Harlem! Harlem! We Want Harlem! Jordan Colin 11th Grade New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts

Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! I wish respect upon the brothers and sisters of no stardom! I want love for myself, me and I. Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem!

For comfort, we migrated. For comfort, we migrated far. Far and in great abundance. Doves of color fly away from a ruckus. What if I sing a hymn like "Jesus leads me all the way?" Will it lead me to be free? Or will it lead me back to the back end of the economy? That's why we've claimed your properties. Tired! Tired! Tired of the oppression! We came to embrace a Black Bohemia. Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! I wish respect upon the brothers and sisters of no stardom! I want love for myself, me and I. Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! The city's full of value like streams of the Nile. I'm a Negro that speaks of rivers. I wonder daily if the contradiction of the Mississippi gave Louie his melodies. Liberation and bondage. This sort of thinking reminds me of cottonclub.

Where Negro Folk Music was played by a brother's band. "All that Jazz" says the boiled, red white man. Irony is his kind has been kind to mine. Minds of us Negro folk are in lime. To be poor is hard, but a race poor in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardship. The Double Consciousness of the Negro Catharsis. Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! I wish respect upon the brothers and sisters of no stardom! I want love for myself, me and I. Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! Harlem! Harlem! Give me Harlem back! Give me acknowledgment for my intellect. Give me a paint brush, I'll strike the canvas black. Gave a greater depression than the Stock Market crash. Harlem! Harlem! I love you Harlem! Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! I wish respect upon the brothers and sisters of no stardom!

I want love for myself, me and I. Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem! Harlem! Harlem! We want Harlem!

PIZZA POET LAUREATE

Pizza

Roses are red.

Alexander Mickal 2nd Grade

Violets are blue.

Bricolage Academy

love pizza like you.

Cheese grater

People like me

Sharp metal

Ode To a Cheese Grater Simsim Hegazzi 6th Grade

Candy

Bauhaus Montessori

Turns out It’s not For eating Dentist Time I athk If I

Need brateth Turnth out I don’t

Candy is all colors

Have teef

Nola Voelke 2nd Grade

It smells sweet and happy

International School of Louisiana Dixon

It looks like the sun, the moon, the clouds

Turnth out

It tastes sour and tasty It sounds like the crunchiness of fun

I got

Tetnith

Shooting Star

When I was first born My eyes lit up like a shooting star. I was born at night when a shooting star passed my window

Stagi Watson 3rd Grade

My eyes were bright.

ARISE Academy

I realized, I am a shooting star.

I thought, “Why do my eyes sparkle?” and I will complete all my dreams like a shooting star!

Untitled Moira Doyle 7th Grade Bricolage Academy

PIZZA POET LAUREATE

Life is like a rainbow It looks like a circle It smells like tears and joy It tastes like sadness, anger, happiness It sounds like laughter and cries It feels like dancing through a movie

I’m Smart Madison McBride 3rd Grade ARISE Academy

I can do anything I put my mind to

I’m smart I can do things others can’t I’m smart I am a perfectionist I’m smart

There are 60 seconds in a minute

Tick Tock Goes the Clock

As I walked up the mountain, tall and steep

Up The Mountain

I heard a creep

Teresa Cashen 11th Grade

I realized how peaceful life could be

Mount Carmel Academy

It was nothing to be afraid of as it was only a sheep Munching on the grass around me And how all the animals were out roaming free

there are 60 minutes in an hour.

Oh! Dear time goes so fast it was just minutes but now it’s hours. It feels like I have been here for only seconds,

Ariel Stubbs 7th Grade

says my brain

Paul Habans Charter School

turn into minutes

but seconds which minutes

As I came to the stream I remembered the time

turn into hours.

That I thought all I’d do was climb

Different times are trapped

And I could not wait to hear the chime

in my mind now

But if I only knew what was soon to come

all I see is clocks

A noise so loud that sounded of a drum

everywhere I go.

If only we knew what it was to become

When I go somewhere

A storm rolled in and we heard a shout

all I hear is tick tock,

At first, we were uncertain of what it was about

Tick Tock goes the clock.

A shout of excitement for the end of the drought

If we were all chairs,

We’d Be Bored If We Were That

We’d get bored of being sat on If we were all hairs, We’d get bored of being brushed up

Pizza Bee

Pizza is so good.

Reynolds Davis 1st Grade

I’d like Hawaiian.

Lusher Charter School If we were all neighs, If we were all mays, We’d get bored of being called that If we were all cats,

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans

If we were all hats,

What do you like? I go to Theo’s. Where do you go?

PIZZA POET LAUREATE

We’d get bored of little horses

Annie Wise 3rd Grade

Pizza has cheese in it.

We’d get bored of saying, “meow!” I went to Homegrown

We’d get bored of people’s big heads

Pizza Time

But we’re all humans, And we aren’t bored of being that!

PIZZA POET LAUREATE 13

Naomi Pulphus 1st Grade Hynes UNO

with my mom I put the sauce I put the cheese They put it in the oven I ate it It tasted better than pizza I made at home I felt amazing

And All That! Tallulah Gecewich 2nd Grade

I am a candy that has no sweet side I am a cat that has muddy paws I am a newborn kitten that’s floofy I am a cartoon that’s real And I feel that feel,

Tall like a skyscraper, pink like

That is all that and that is real!

Strawberry ice cream

Bricolage Academy

PIZZA POET LAUREATE See, I’d rather have loyalty than love

Loyalty & Love Damond Brown 7th Grade Paul Habans Charter School

cause love don’t mean jack You can love someone

Mike The Dinosaur Aldaja Mitchell 7th Grade Paul Habans Charter School

Fall hard and roar loud, but a friendly Dinosaur, but cant get his own space Wants to relax like it's summer He tries to leave but the cameras keep on following him Starts to cry Finds a friend don't cry it's going to be alright I'm the last dinosaur

and still stab them in they back

Everybody wants a picture of me

See love is just a feeling

But sometimes they need to know

You could love me just by being attached

how I feel

See loyalty is an action

He leaves and never comes back

You can love or hate me

And I relax like it's summer

and still have my back

PIZZA POET LAUREATE

Skin hard as a rock but that's not it

You’re alone. Through masks and texts, Through cabin fever and silence,

You and Me

You talk without sound. The darkness consumes you.

Turn the Light On Amelia Robinson 8th Grade Lusher Charter School

All you long for is interaction, With people. Remember the walls?

Felix Soria 2nd Grade

Those barriers you, yourself put up

Bricolage Academy

Real people.

You sit in the dark waiting for light, Alone.

No one knows you, past the likes and the pics, Turn the light on. Talk to people with volume, Light up, Not alone, but alive. Don’t let the barriers you build to protect yourself, tear you down. Feel the warmth travel from your toes to your mouth, As you take a bite. As winter comes to an end. See the switch, Turn it on.

PIZZA POET LAUREATE 15

I love it when you read to me In the car

All the clouds they Told the story of you and me

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are so appreciative of all who came together to make the Pizza Poetry Project possible. Carmin Wong, Carly Berlin, and Skye Jackson created lessons and facilitated poetry-writing experiences in schools virtually. Aime’ Lohmeyer and the New Orleans Public Library made our poetry activities available through their take-and-make kits. Tyler Clark Burke created an amazing poster and other bright images, and Felici Astienza and Joey Fillastre of MILAGROS designed a beautiful book cover. The typing of poetry was done through the dedication and effort of Rosie Loughran and Patrick Halloran. Lastly, we wouldn’t have had a place to publish poems if it weren’t for our pizza partners: Pizza Delicious, Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza, Reginelli’s Pizzeria, and Homegrown Pizza.

DONORS This book was also supported in part by:

W.K. Kellogg Foundation This program is supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council. Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Works.

About 826 New Orleans 826 New Orleans’s mission is to cultivate and support the voices of New Orleans's writers ages 6-18 through creative collaborations with schools and communities. Since 2010, 826 New Orleans has served more than 4000 youth through dynamic, innovative, free writing programs supported by over 400 volunteers. All of our programs are project-based and driven by student voice. In 826 New Orleans programs, young people become published authors with the support of caring volunteers, building their toolbox of literacy skills and boosting their confidence in the process. We believe great leaps in learning happen with individualized attention, that writing is fundamental to future success, and that youth voice is crucial to the future of New Orleans. The 826 New Orleans Youth Writing Center, located in the 7th Ward, serves as a hub of literacy and creativity, hosting students, teachers, and community members, offering innovative school-day, after school, weekend, and summer programming that seeks to energize and elevate educational practices in New Orleans. Learn more at www.826neworleans.org.