Cristo Rey Re-entry Program.- The Class and Their Poems The high school "drop - out" or "bored - to -death-out""(whateverthe case may be) no longer has to roam {.arising streets in search fo something to interest him. He can be "interested" and receive high school credits in the process while attending the Crista Rey Reentry Program- The class is tawght by ftawrf Hntlktar popular high school f^*arhrr (anKmg ttmfrrik ,-mrf progressives) Ksghzsr Caanty cinnnnssiiBiEr 3YTriF cQRiffmnity asset. The re-entry program was established by the Lansing pubhc schools in reaction to a student walkout at Pattengill Jr. High School last fall. Students enroll in the program on a contract basis. If they complete a designated amount of work, they receive comparable credits. An integral feature of the class is the emphasis on self - expression. Often the structured environment of high schools inhibit student voice. However, in the class, Hollister creates the type of atmosphere in Alone which the student feels free to air his opinions. Class conduct essentially is Last night I had a dream. informal and open ended. Students are I alone was on Earth. encouraged to express themselves in a Like a young stream, variety of forms. The ocean had given birth For the past several weeks the students I walked between structures in a city have been communicating their sentiments Expecting to hear a voice I knew. through poetry. The subject matterof their For myself I felt pity. poems ranges from the intensely personal, In silence a dove flew. as found here in Kathy Bell's poem I stare at what I own "Wedgewood Acres Youth Home Quiet And I ask, "Why me?" Room," to the more abstract themes of There must be others alone love, war and society in general. But the Especially one I must see. primary importance of each poem is that So I walk in wonder the student has conveyed thoughts and In the early morning sun. feelings that normally would never have My existence I ponder. been expressed. There is someone. Robert Sickels Now we are alone with and sorrow joy To play with the world ink drawing / M. Luiz Man and woman is a combination Like a child with a toy. Held together by emotion, - Fidel Mejia But only a small string of it. Wedgewood Acres' Youth Home Quiet Room They experience love, hate, selfishness and giving. Can I say what's on my mind to them, tell them that I'm in a pit and can't In one coupling a child is made, get out, Into a world of love, hate, no, Inside a locked door, selfishness and giving. blew up. The Nation The room is hot and quiet. I breathe He grows like a tree musty air, alone. Slow Parents and teachers program. I pound on the door, no . . one hears their kids. .to think. still pounding a cold sweat runs Growing its leaves of experience . . . the way the way they.. . down my body till I fall back to want them to the corner Growing wiser And after awhile their brains are Seeing past combinations talking to myself, saying what like.. .sponges.. .absorbing every. . . others should hear Afraid to bring another child into this world Thing they say the door is opened Not letting them feel Hiding my face, I walk out, He prepares his mate — Paul Snook run to an open place, cry With the pill! hope people will listen M. Luiz They will. - Kathie Bell Creative Award WritingWinners Fiction Poetry 1st. 1st "coming to harm," Carolyn Forche' 2nd. 2nd. "Anti-Ghazaf," Mike McCormick 3rd. 3rd. "The Crazy Mai." Vicki Jacobs Toccata." John Mc To Ami On Touring! "Street Lady." Jeff McCormick Althon#! only first, second and third prizes < Robtson; for poetry. Daryl Jones, Roger Mi a of entries (1,100 poems and ) there were several pieces which the fudges The Festival committee would like to thank those ouM not 90 without notice a organizations and individuals who have donated prizes in the Creative Writing Competition: Happiness Holding Tank, The Honors College, The judges for the fiction competition were Paramount News Center. Tom Sawyers Book Raft, Benvenuto, Albert Drake and John Red Cedar Review, Pan He), and The State News. Carolyn Forche coming to harm her Wood is wired to She sat on the stool undersides where tubes a cheerleader graduated have been grown in Magna Cum Laude a pattern she is pink from a nightclub and she swells beneath him their stomach skins adhering wet legs suffocating her jeans defined his mouth moves the thin line of along her until the dream and reality nap is standing. Mike McConnick She hung into your eyes II ANTI-GHAZAL she lay dying in a smile, and . .. (for jim harrison america her mouth and statton) AND THEN WHAT? fingering an austrian rosary bead and her No patron of the Hiltons and then you wished bowels slipping through you travel glass walls her ass would drop rest home drainage of your briefcase into your lap systems slowly slipping she circulated and stared, reading in bars and universities ride into town on the back But she married voiding on the bed asleep of a cowgirl, spurred in the dust the fullback on plastic pads she of her flanks, you make a rodeo of love and will never mentioned her german read your poems in concentration camps they We sit in some bar snapped her bones, the drinking beer like poems 3 broken pencils. Statton (well into it) smelts Eros Casting for tarpon from your sensorium / decants swimming in your drink III in a smile, drips sharply she cast her streaked eyes At thirty two if you catch him on the needle and out over cutting your eye what will be left? the lake to catch it falls into his Itands and knit you into Ah! eightball and arm wrestling her interest, her long white back and thrust, (auspiciously descriptive) Yes, you live well she ships you to settle for a closer look the lives of your poetry in her shrunken Siberia and you taste between 4 her legs while she starves thighs fourteen years old draw to him in the shoal 1:01 AM you the leash is measured I leave you closing him in tightness with Statton between her kitchen and of water, you reel sinking deeper in the depths your child. off Key West grab the waist of a glass Carolyn Forche The drive home and, like the whiskey turning in your stomach was long has done you a favor, smash it headlights pulling me into rain on the head of Kate Millet they shovel night from my eyes drag slowly like rusty days (yet afraid to cut through a glare of wet glass skin of snake) Mike McCormick STREET LADY Where she got an old man like that 111 never know And I can't get her to even look into me As long as she's ripped on her old red wine. Oh. Amanda, with a name like that You shouldn't even turn my head. But. you do And you're so little and frail In your drab Army jacket like a sparrow, scavenging the curb, Walking arm in arm with your fat old Vicki Jacobs - lefT McCormick THE CRAZY MAN Ah, the crazy man, he shrugs the snow from his peppered beard And shakes his shoulders outward square. Smiles. rhe crazy man he says nothing but Leaves conversation well comprehended, guilden. I pick ud the pieces for the winds to blow away Above my head they fall upon him. Singular the crazy man he lives and dances To sleep-talk audience we give him weigh. And wonders we trodding in snow bank Jeff McCormick Time-lent stripped against the steel sky Laughs away olden time. Ah, the crazy man, they points, says: "Crazy do sometime, yesterday O.K., tomorrow maybe." Crazy man, he shrugs the snow from his peppered beard And patterns the branches about the ground. TO ANNI ON TOURING SCANDINAVIA Imagines spring on white dreams, say they: "The crazy man goes a way. He'll pay."" Adrift inland, swirl eyes to the spires The gold sky clinks, pirate ship furls Where pigeons eddy. On fiords, follow isles Upon sea upon sea of gulls and crying Of white gulls fissioning, fusing. Ladies in flower waves the mast back, In black mountains, shade-gaze to hawks And rebounds for child smiles. Careening valleys, climbing the listening Only the crazy man laugh. Summer on molten rungs. 1 Am among the restless: restless tear The crazy man, knows you the path with the ivies? Me flutter, mew, and crackle the wind. They kiss the mossed rot log and the years For me sing when the singing breaks: Stands he by the gum drop in corner, shaky and raggy, At the blow of the ocean salt-tang, ache. Cheeks flame-oranged with night warmth dreams Sings ditties and shanties he on sand bands — Amy Lee Sifting, sifting the flies me goes and comes And comes mostly midnights in cloaks that cruel Striptease go one, one one, one one. Crazy man count on his thumb while dances On fine leathered skin and wrinkles he noses And snowses the black to become it white. Hie crazy man pointses and curtsy at me. Ha-ha! leaves us snowses in spite and we, We come back slow, slowly. The gold on the greening dirt Sits, begs to the taking and giggling I hears by the Ladies in waiting the waves lapping rhythm. Syncopate: "I, I know know I, know I." I Falls and prance over me logging and mossing. Stops faster and shakes snow from his peppered beard. We kisses the sunset with drool. He says nothing but Bends love on perspectives in crazy horizons. Oh, the man. The "crazy" man he. - Vicki Jacobs Amy Lee The Ingham County Bicentennial Media Festival & Creative Writing Awards Presentation No. II mixed media by Dennis Pace, poetry by and media, as well as work exploring those Tonight at 8 in the Wonders Hall Kiva, Jim Kalmbach, kinetic sculpture by David the Media Festival will feature the artistic forms which cut across traditional Kirkpatrick, a dance/music encounter presentation of awards in the Creative categories moving toward more complete featuring members of Orchesis and the Writing Contest as well as a short program expression (for the artist) and more MSU Jazz Band, and several films. The of experimentation and encounter in media complete experience (for the audience), three winning poets in the writing and the and some works moving to break down or performing arts. The festival competition also will read from their work. attempts to bring together examples of new bridge this artist/audience gap itself. Admission to the Media Festival is MSU work in poetry, film, dance, music Featured will be poetry by Hugh Fox, absolutely free. Cristo Rey cont'dP Peace Will Come I don't want the songs of war Tears of sorrow I want no more. Young lives are wasted, The sweetness of life never tasted. Fight for freedom, so they say, Unexperienced to this day. Our leaders escalate to end. Brothers, your minds they will bend. They train to hate and kill. The thought of a dead child makes me ill. A war in vain, Tell me Lord, is it worth the pain? But peace will come, IU tell you how Mushrooms against the sky. Peace Now! - Fidel Mejia I don't see nothing much excEpfc for drugs Lhatrs ok. I dant sec nothing much The trees are ray finger but people being The mountains ae my hands. drug off to jail I breathe gales for being Inhale tornadoes and hurricanes drank I change my expression or using drugs. In fits of passion I change my face I don't see why they don't check it out When I'm in a daze, where they got it cause they could have you Who occupy my time picked it up off the street Cannot understand when and not know what it was. I talk. - Lee Nichols My children Do not know me God My brothers and my sisters Communicate to me Where is he, is there really a god? Why can't thee? Yes there is a god, but he is not Why can't thee? going to help the people. - Rudy Cazanova Why, IU tell you why when some of the people crucified him. That's why. There is pollution the war! Poverty. That's why the pigs I went around the world one day. are so bad. To see everything my eyes have seen before Why did they kill him I wasn't amazed at what I saw, Because he was different from them Just the deep blue sky and the roaming ocean's shore. That's why society is so bold. That's why I say the pigs And one time in my life I was the ruler of the world are so bad. They are like the I branded guns, hate, and prejudice. people who crucified him We all filled the world with love and peace But he will come back for one another we all lived. at the end. Why? Only you can answer it yourself. In my world the air was filled with music, - Abel Garza Our hearts filled with love and joy. Society Life was just one big party, Of wine and love to satisfy every girl and boy. Society is mentally hooked on construction Like a Junkie on smack When your mind is so far gone. concrete they have no care about You dream of the things that can happen today. But.. .the money from its arches don't stop and wonder why Builds more arches not ragged people Just let your mind carry you away. Not broken wooden walls — Roy Montalvo Not muddy flooded basements Society is looking for more concrete As junkies searching for the next fix. Paul E. Snook Hell as the devil and hell is like fire Clouds as smoke smoke as pollution Black as the night light as the sun Life as the lakes, rivers' as death. P. EUS #%- Lopez drawing / Rudy Cazanova