Students Find Their Voices Through “The Word”

ence’s interpretation.

This premise rang true with Black, a senior at New Haven Academy. Touched by the reading, he spoke up, revealing how he tied it to his personal experiences.

“I had a hard time trying to connect with the poem until the very end,” Black said. “I started thinking about my dad. He passed over a year ago, and it just kind of felt like a little message from him to me saying like, ‘until we meet again.’”

Among the other attendees was Meeri Ellis, a sixth grader at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS). Looking over a poem, Meeri said she had only recently gotten into poetry, and learned about the program from her sibling and Word alum and mentor Dyme Ellis. With support from both Shuler and Ellis, Meeri read aloud. Like Constantinescu, she said she had written her poem the day before.

“Rethinking the decisions you’ve made that resulted in misery. The people who have left you in confusion and sadness replaying in your mind constantly, making you want to disappear like the depths of darkness,” Meeri read in a monotone voice.

“The laughs closing on you, the tips of stringers looking into your direction. Is this really life? Is this really reality? Maybe it is. Maybe this is real life. Maybe this is really our reality.”

The group erupted into snaps and applause, excited to hear from a voice that had initially wanted to evade the spot- light. Meeri mentioned a goal of hers was to leave the workshop “confident and more inspired,” and did so by closing the workshop at the end.

To the elder Ellis, coming back to The Word felt like a space of “intergenerational camaraderie,” they said. They were grateful to see a group of students, like their sister, using poetry as a medium of expression.

“I just come out of college when I joined The Word but still I was developing my craft and it’s been a couple of years,” Ellis said, talking to the students in the room. “It feels nostalgic and cool [to be back].” stability. It also will focus on planning and infrastructure inequity that affects underserved communities.

In addition to its weekly workshops, The Word will be holding a poetry slam April 14 at 5:30 p.m. at the Stetson Branch Library, 197 Dixwell Ave. in New Haven. The top six poets will go on to represent Connecticut at the Brave New Voices slam in San Francisco from July 18 to 23. To participate, email thewordpoetry@gmail.com.

This article is a collaboration with the City of New Haven’s Department of Arts, Culture & Tourism, which is supporting young writers who cover recipients of the 2023 Neighborhood Cultural Vitality Grants. Abiba Biao is a graduate of the Arts Council’s Youth Arts Journalism Initiative and has stayed on with the Arts Paper as a freelance writer and photographer. She is currently a freshman at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU).

At North Carolina AT&T, the funds will allow the university to establish a center with research that would focus on the production of affordable housing, homeownership, renewable energy, sustainable communities, and post-disaster recovery.

“This funding will bolster efforts HBCUs are making to expand opportunities for underserved communities and strengthen community development,”

Fudge stated.

Under Fudge, HUD has worked to advance racial equity and ensure steps to make homeownership more accessible for Black Americans.

In a Fact Sheet, HUD officials noted that through the Federal Housing Administration, the agency has implemented major reductions to the annual premiums it charges homebuyers for mortgage insurance.

Officials said the action will help Black low-and-moderate income residents save an estimated $600 million in the next year, and billions over the next decade. Additionally, HUD’s Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity issued a policy statement in 2021 about making way for lenders to resolve inequities in homeownership that individuals of color face.

Previously, the agency published a notice of proposed rulemaking to restore the department’s Discriminatory Effects Standards and allow policies that unjustifiably exclude people from housing opportunities to be challenged.

The powerful tool for HUD and private plaintiffs to address polices that cause systemic inequality in housing, includes policies on criminal records, zoning requirements, lending and property insurance policies that impact equal access to housing opportunities for Black people, HUD officials stated.

Black Teens From New Orleans Solve Math Problem Believed to Be Impossible For 2,000 Years

BlackNews.com

Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, two high school students from New Orleans, Louisiana have reportedly solved an “impossible” math problem and presented it at a recent conference where they were the only high schoolers.

The duo, who are students of St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, said they had proven Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry without circular logic. It was a discovery that countless mathematicians around the world believed to be impossible for over 2,000 years.

Most recently, they presented their work called “An Impossible Proof of Pythagoras” at the American Mathematical Society’s Southeastern Section’s semi-annual meeting at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. They were reportedly the only high schoolers at the event which was attended by math researchers from several institutions and universities across the country.

“It’s really an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there’s just nothing like being able to do something that people don’t think young people can do,” Johnson told WWLTV. “A lot of times you see this stuff, you don’t see kids like us doing it.”

The 2 high school seniors said it wouldn’t have been possible without the encouragement of their teachers, who instilled in them their school’s slogan ‘No Excellence Without Hard Labor.’

“We have really great teachers,” Jackson added.

Moreover, Johnson and Jackson are planning to go to college and get their STEM degrees, which are environmental engineering and biochemistry.