The Transformative Power of Poetry

When a group of Gonzaga students led a poetry workshop for fifth-graders from the inner-city, they ended up learning as much as they taught.

by Joseph Ross

It was 7:45 in the morning on a grey day, and the rain was coming down hard. But even the wet February weather couldn’t keep my spirits down. I was on my way to meet up with eight of my students in Our Lady’s Chapel, and then board a bus to the Bishop Walker School, a tuition-free school for boys in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast, D.C.

The students, all juniors and seniors, were part of Gonzaga Poets & Writers, a club I cofounded with several students in the fall of 2012, my first semester teaching at Gonzaga. Over the past six and a half years, the group has grown gradually; some years it’s bigger than others. We hold several poetry slams each school year, organize an annual poetry contest, read poems at the Freshman Retreat each January, and for the last two years, host alumni poetry readings on Gonzaga’s campus. We meet every Thursday and I’m consistently amazed at the way poetry draws students.

The eight poets who were with me on this February morning were part of a group called Young Poets 2 Young Poets, a subset of Gonzaga Poets & Writers that introduces young people to poetry. On this trip, we planned to hold a poetry workshop for fifth graders. It would be the first time many of my students had ever done something like this. Some of them were excellent poets. Some were students who loved poetry. But all of them had experienced the transformative power of poetry—they’d seen it give their feelings a voice, a way to name and understand the world around them. I knew they could do this.

As the bus made its way across town, through Washington, D.C.’s morning rush hour, I don’t think the boys, or I, had any sense of the powerful experience awaiting us.

We began planning for our trip to Bishop Walker School in early January. The students met a few times in my classroom in Kohlmann Hall to create a schedule for our visit, and select the topics for the poems. Led by Lucas Jung ‘19 and Malcolm Terry ‘20, the group also included Hunter Stewart ‘19, Aaron Davis ‘19, Cole Strudwick ‘19, Hameed Nelson ‘19, Derrick Aikens ‘20, and Wade Davis ‘20.

When we arrived, we were greeted by our host, Mr. Bardell Brown, a BWS teacher and a former student of mine at Archbishop Carroll High School. He gave us a tour of the school, which goes from kindergarten through fifth grade, before taking us to meet the group of ten enthusiastic fifth graders we’d be working with that day.

Ms. Nelson, the fifth grade teacher, asked her boys to introduce themselves first, then the Gonzaga students did the same. When it was Hunter Stewart’s turn, he spoke about how often young black men are told not to express their feelings. “Poetry is important in my life because it gives me the chance to name and share my emotions,” he said. Lucas Jung described how poetry has helped him navigate various challenges in his life. You could tell from the looks on the boys’ faces: They were in, they were ready.

Malcolm Terry, who served as our MC, divided everyone into small groups. Once there, the Gonzaga students asked the BWS students to write a poem on one of three topics: “On My Street,” “Who I Want to Be,” or “A Person I Admire.” Then the writing began. The fifth graders didn’t need much encouragement, they dove right in. You could see the intense effort. They struggled to find the right word. They engaged in some quiet conversation as they wrote, then an occasional eruption of success when they discovered a good line. They shared their poems within their small groups and then we organized a poetry slam for the whole class. We moved the desks around facing a central point. They asked their teacher, Ms. Nelson, to turn down the lights. She kept one light up high, front and center, as if it were “the mic.” Here comes the magic. We all snapped our fingers for Malcolm as he introduced each poet. Most of the fifth graders read their work. Not much shyness here. Malcolm mixed the Gonzaga poets in too.

It was working. Some of the fifth graders read poems describing their love of football, their admiration of LeBron James. Others wrote of the motorcycles on their street, of gunshots they hear regularly at night. They wrote of heroic grandmothers and best friends. The poems these boys wrote contained remarkable honesty and bravery. One fifth grade boy wrote about the violence in his neighborhood. He closed his poem with the line, “bullets have no names.”

Lucas Jung read a poem he wrote called “Anxiety.” Cole Strudwick read a poem praising the courage of Colin Kaepernick. In our discussion at the end of the poetry slam, one fifth grader made us all laugh by saying: “I thought a poetry exercise would be boring. But it wasn’t. I loved every minute of it.”

We took some photographs, talked casually, then shook a lot of hands and bumped a lot of fists before we left. We promised to come back or to have the boys visit Gonzaga one day before the school year ends.

Part of the Bishop Walker School Mission Statement reads: “The Bishop John T. Walker School for Boys strives to alter the educational and social trajectory of children from traditionally underserved communities and prepare them for leadership and service in their communities and well beyond.” We were thrilled to have been part of this mission, if only for one day.

On the way back to Gonzaga, the rain kept coming down, but our students were talkative and excited. When we got back to Eye Street, we went into the chapel for a brief reflection before the students went their separate ways, back to the routine of classes and schoolwork.

I like to ask short, open ended questions. So I asked our young poets, “What did you see today?” Many noted the difficult topics that came up in the students’ poems. They talked about the boys’ openness to a new experience. I asked them, “What surprised you?” Many were impressed by the easy nature of the fifth graders. They were “all in” as soon as we started. Our poets observed the obvious love these fifth graders feel for their school. We committed to find some ways to stay in touch with these boys and to build a partnership between our poets and theirs, our school and theirs.

Lucille Clifton, an African American poet from Maryland, one of the last poets we study in American Literature, is known to have said: “Poetry saves lives from the inside out.” During this magical morning, we certainly saw some of that.

English teacher Joseph Ross is the author of three books of poetry. His fourth collection, Raising King, will be published in the Fall of 2020. ■