Tylyn K. Johnson
What they Teachin’ them To be artist is to survive on nothing as school programs do when they cater to cultures beyond whiteness To be artist is to put all your broken pieces together and create the new, the reborn the revitalized only to be gentri ed for the kids who end up moved from their hoods To be creative is to make ink out of your own blood put that ink into the latest state testing booklet with no hope of saving your school To be creative is to laugh at how they redid the school playground but never gave you chalk for the blacktop because when you learn words you practice gra ti To be writer is to traverse language on an unwritten border between the strict vernaculars of schools and the slangs spoken on your home street To be writer is to speak in tongues that were almost forgotten and to see your old schools teach your message without its meaning To be imaginative is to make up new words for when the ones you were taught don’t t so you nally remember a heritage of gold made by people who walked over broken glass To be imaginative is to know that the street’s potholes and cracked sidewalks are a language you best learn to translate; “they don’t care about us” and “we’ll make do with what we got” To be storyteller is to hold onto the names and faces of those you witness and play eulogist for those who no longer be – even when nobody originally cared To be storyteller is to keep places in memory that have long been torn down, replaced as the new kids come in with no recollection of what was once before
Tyme and Playce in the Cosmos ___ 18 ___ The Natural, Cultural, Mundane, and Macabre
