There are times when life is tough
But you can’t fall back and let the gravel eat you up.
Just have to push forward onto the next,
If you want to be loved
Show them the courage that brought you up.
—from “Denji” by JK
“Denji” by JK demonstrates the inventive craft-work and palpable resilience of our students in the Poetry Alive! program. When we read the line “Show them the courage that brought you up,” we remember the courage of our students each time we step into the classroom.
We teach at both the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Center and the Patrick D. Molinari Shelter, and in each location students show us that, despite the carceral state, despite being forced into an environment they did not choose, they are still courageous enough to try new things—like poetry. We cannot pretend to truly understand how our students feel or what juvenile incarceration is like, but, because we get to witness them as artists, we’ve been with them as they speak their truths through their poems.
While some of our students resist poetry at first—given the lack of diversity and representation taught within traditional K-12 poetry lessons—they nearly all try their hand at writing and participating in the activities we bring for the day. To engage with poetry is to engage with vulnerability, and that takes bravery and trust in your community. Our job as teachers is to foster that vulnerability, build relationships, and protect the classroom as a place of freedom, discovery, connectivity, and heart. We never criticize the poetry of our students but instead celebrate the strengths in whatever it is they choose to write, recognizing the challenges they face prior to ever putting pencil down to paper.
Poetry Alive!, housed under Poetry Daily and the George Mason University (GMU) creative writing MFA, is an initiative that brings poetry to youth who are either detained or displaced. Beyond poetry, this program creates a space of vulnerability that allows for the sharing of voices, reinforcing a sense of shared community.
Since its inception in 2019, the mission of Poetry Alive! has been to introduce poetry to students who are often forgotten as vital voices in the craft. This program is modeled after the successful pilot program initiated in spring 2022 in partnership with Poetry Daily by the inaugural Fairfax Poet Laureate, Nicole Tong. Since this upstart, the program has grown from two graduate teaching fellows to four fellows, including Martheaus Perkins, McKinley Johnson, and both of us (Nicholas Ritter and Katey Funderburgh). Previous fellows include Chelsea Lebron, Victoria Mendoza, and Meg Brooks.
Our teaching began exclusively at the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center (FCJDC). We primarily work with students in the BETA program—a year-long therapeutic initiative for male residents aged 14-17—but have also taught female students outside of the BETA program in the past. Our teaching at the FCJDC is made possible through funding by ArtsFairfax.
As of Fall 2024, Poetry Alive! has expanded into teaching at the Patrick D. Molinari Juvenile Shelter in Prince William County, Virginia. The center is a non-secure facility that acts as an alternative to detention or emergency placements for youths of all genders aged 11-17. Dr. Ronald Pannell, the supervisor of education at the Patrick Molinari Juvenile Shelter, gained funding through a Virginia Department of Education grant and collaborated with Poetry Daily and the George Mason University MFA program to bring us graduate teaching fellows and Poetry Alive! to the shelter.
Our work would not be possible without the guidance and collaboration of the co-directors of Poetry Daily, Peter Streckfus and Sally Keith, as well as Jessica Finley, librarian specialist and librarian at the FCJDC, and the teachers at Molinari, Crystal Violette and Kim Burns.
NICHOLAS: My initial reasoning for coming to GMU was heavily influenced by the presence of Poetry Alive! within the community. I have now been teaching with Poetry Alive! for going on three years, and I have grown so much. When I first started teaching, the two lead teaching fellows were Victoria and Megan, and they showed me the ropes. Since then, I have become a lead teacher myself and developed various lessons for us to teach. One of my primary goals in teaching at the FCJDC and Molinari shelter, particularly with the boys, is to insert a presence of non-toxic masculinity. For many young boys, the perimeters of gender can feel quite limiting, and there is a belief that one has to perform masculinity in a certain way. Through Poetry Alive! I want to show my students that masculinity can also mean vulnerability and kindness, and that poetry is an avenue to express that version of positive masculinity. While poetry is literally in the name of our program, I don’t see teaching it as my primary objective. It comes secondary to creating a safe environment where the youth we teach feel comfortable sharing stories and are able to form interpersonal bonds.
KATEY: Like Nicholas, I also came to GMU for my MFA because of Poetry Alive!. Having spent a year as an AmeriCorps educator in rural Montana, I knew that I wanted to continue working in the intersections between literature and social justice; this program proves to me, again and again, that poetry is a liberatory force. Prisons shouldn’t exist, but each time I’m in the classroom with our students, I remember that this craft is an avenue for free expression and self-exploration. The poems allow me to connect with the students, to share my own memories, dreams, struggles, and to relate to them about both the content of the poems we read, and the content of the poems they write. Building community like this is my favorite part. The students continually astound me— their work is raw, deft, and sonically beautiful. We have a strong community here, from Sally, Peter, the other Poetry Alive! fellows, and the librarians and teachers at the FCJDC and Molinari, to the kids whose writing we get to nurture and encourage.
Our typical lesson plan involves reading a selected poem or two aloud to the classroom: once read by the instructors and the second time ‘popcorn’ read by the students so they each voice a few lines of the poem. We select poems based on how well we think they will resonate with our audience and how well they allow us to execute a lesson. Next, we transition to the main lesson of the day which covers one specific aspect of poetry we find crucial and accessible; like beauty or sound work. These lessons build on the poem(s) we selected for the day, and tend to begin with a short lecture of sorts, less than ten minutes or so. After the lecture, it comes time for the main activity of the day. Following that, we give students a brief prompt and ask them to either write off the prompt or free write. From there, we ask students to share their work in whatever way they feel comfortable with.
To tackle challenges provided by teaching across such a wide age range, we design approachable lesson plans that can be applicable across different age ranges, reading levels, and degrees of familiarity with the terminology of literature. This includes a lot of lessons that focus on physically manipulating words, to make the lesson as interactive as possible, The lessons that require students to draw, cut, and glue tend to also be the ones that give students a sense of agency and freedom, we’ve found. We aim to design activities that can dispel their anxieties before we ever ask them to write from their own personal experiences. We also have the benefit of having multiple instructors in the room, allowing us to spread ourselves across small groups or into one-on-one interactions.
Each activity also culminates with writing prompts that are purposefully less-technical. For example, instead of requiring the students to write a Petrarchan sonnet, we ask them to write a poem about someone they love. These types of prompts are aimed at opening doors and furthering that atmosphere of play and freedom for the students; the prompts are also always designed to make space for students to write about anything that is coming up for them. During this portion of the lesson, the air in the classroom shifts into a palpable softness, as students get the chance to use poetry to process their emotions and experiences. Sometimes this means they ‘journal’ instead of writing a poem, sometimes they deviate from the prompt— but they are always writing, and this is what matters in this space.
To further encourage our students, we always write to the prompt along with them. After writing, we ask our students to take another risk: if they feel comfortable enough, we give everyone that chance to share their work aloud with the class. To get the ball rolling, we most often have the instructors be the first to share; we want, as much as possible, to make our classroom a non-hierarchical, non-punitive place. Sometimes, the students ask us to read their work privately, or to be their readers aloud to the group—these acts of bravery and vulnerability from the students are exactly what our lessons aim to protect and encourage.
We’ve put together a brief outline of some of the lessons we’ve used in the past. View them here.
Along with us teaching fellows, Poetry Alive! has been able to bring in a visiting poet to be in conversation with the students. We’ve been lucky enough for the past several years to be accompanied by National Book Award finalist, José Olivarez, via Zoom. He’s been able to bring an outside perspective to our students, who are always eager to ask him various questions about poetry and life. Because we spend a lot of classroom time with his book, Promises of Gold, a bilingual collection of poetry that explores what it is to be a Mexican-American man, this is a chance for the students to gain even more access to poetry as an obtainable career and life-long practice.
At the FCJDC, because we get to work with our students for an extended period of time (as supposed to at Molinari where our students differ week from week) we collect poems written by our students and make hand-sewn chapbooks after our lessons for the semester have concluded. The students collaborate on designing the cover and choosing the name of the book— their influence and creative energy runs throughout the project. These chapbooks are then distributed to the students to receive once they leave the FCJDC.
Visiting poet José Olivarez has also contributed a forward to our chapbooks, reflecting on the student’s poetry:
“I had the pleasure of visiting the students in the Poetry Alive! program during April of 2024, and I was impressed by their inquisitiveness. They wanted to know about my process for writing a poem. They wanted to read me their poems. They are brilliant and kind and already on the path to becoming excellent writers. I hope that they maintain this practice of writing and reflection. No matter what joys and challenges await them, I hope they will always take a second to write and remember that there are those of us eagerly awaiting their thoughts and exclamations. They are not alone. Reader, neither are you… Poetry matters because we matter and poetry is one of the ways we remind each other of this very simple truth.”
We’d love to connect with other educators who are doing work like this, or who want to begin similar programs. If this is you, please contact us: https://poems.com/about/contact-us/
Poetry Alive! is made possible by Arts Fairfax, Virginia Department of Education, and supporters like you. If you, or someone you know, is interested in directly supporting Poetry Alive! please consider donating: https://poems.com/support/
