ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgments

In our Young Writers Publish program, 826NYC works with classes of students and teachers on creative writing projects around and beyond New York City. Eighth grade students from the Academy for Young Writers explored poems about self and identity this year to produce the beautifully original and detailed poetry in this book. No One Can See the Hidden Ocean I’ve Created is a compilation of the original work of these students.

A huge thank you to our 826NYC teaching artist, Willie Filkowski, for creating a virtual classroom where students could revisit and reimagine their work, and write about themselves as writers. Your support, encouragement, and consistency helped our young authors tap into their imaginations and memories to produce such moving work, and your care in this process was invaluable.

We are particularly grateful to Henya La Noue and Deborah Barton for their support of this project. Thank you for diving head first into this publication, bringing with you months of incredible lesson planning, close readings, and innovative writing classes. Your hard work and steadfast dedication to your students and their creative vision allows them to flourish as young writers and thinkers.

At 826NYC we depend on the dedicated volunteer editing and design cohort that make our publications a reality. Thank you to Joe Iovino and Anthony Iovino for designing such a beautiful book for our students. To copy editors and proofreaders Melissa Feinman, Jen Ha, Michelle Haska, Amy Linstrom, Christine Marella,

Lauren Pruitt, Allison Singer, and Rachel Spurrier for their careful attention to each of the student’s pieces, thank you.

A big thank you to The Jane Friedman Anspach Family Foundation, The Hawkins Foundation, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Kettering Foundation, The Minerva Foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, and The Resnick Family Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, for their generous support, which allows us to publish our students’ work. The program is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Thank you especially to the 826NYC staff for their behind-the-scenes support of this project, from curriculum development and the book-making process to volunteer recruitment.

Finally, thank you to the students at the Academy for Young Writers for taking risks with your writing and sharing your words with us. Writing can be a challenging and hopefully fun process, and your dedication to your craft and sharing these incredibly special pieces of yourselves shines through in these poems. We are all excited to see what books you’ll produce in the future!