Guest Artist

Last Monday, the school hosted its first guest speaker since Jane Taylor visited in November. The speaker was a poet named Suhair Hammad, a Jordanian born poet who grew up in Brooklyn. She recited a few of her poems but she mostly related her personal philosophy on poetry to the audience. She said that, for her, poetry is a means of expressing frustration in a non-violent, constructive, and creative way. She said that that poetry is about how one feels and taking everyday feelings and observations and creating from them………….So, I guess she doesn't sound that inspirational. But our students absolutely loved her. She was an expert in what I've heard referred to as "Slam Poetry". She had energy, attitude, and way of captivating the audience. Our students absolutely loved her, but I don't think anyone in the audience knew what to do with her. Whenever she tried getting a response or discussion or rise from the students, they mainly just gave simple, short answers or said that they didn't know. She asked one of our students what it feels like to be a student here and she asked everyone how they felt about not being able to help the victims of the recent Gaza attacks. But I know that she felt that she connected with the audience on some level because two of our students were brave enough to get on stage with her and read their own, original work. And the "performance" lasted longer than it was supposed to so I guess that means we were doing something right.