Turner High Schoolteachers Marlee Stempleman and Jessica Kendall have fashioned a poetry project called the Troubadours Poetry Club where students express themselves by writing and sharing their work. We learned about their program on a past episode of Central Standard, which you can listen back to in this post.
Coming up this Saturday, December 17th, you can congratulate these young artists in person at the release of their poetry collection If Ever the World at the Writer's Place. The book is out on Red Hen Press, and available for $12. All proceeds go to the support and continuation of the poetry club, which has no other funding source. If you're interested in a copy, send Marlee an e-mail.
Book Release Event
Time: 3:00-5:00 PM
Where: The Writer's Place, 3607 Pennsylvania, Kansas City MO 64111
The Storm
By Brooklyn Anderson
My house, it was full.
The storm took that away
As the sun rose each day.
The storm would come.
It would stay.
A cloud, a rain, thunder,
then a hurricane.
My house, it is destroyed.
The storm took it all away.
My house stands still
on a rocky hill.
Each morning the sun will rise,
But the storm it will come.
My house, not a home,
just some bricks, destroyed.
The storm took it all away.
I Remember
By Anna Stark
I remember when my day-to-day existence was nothing but a body taking up space. Another child born into a split family, just another life in this world, a story waiting to be written. Why had pen not touched paper?
My life was stuck in pause. Life is moving around me, but I am not. I was looking at my life from someone else’s perspective.
All I wanted was to be happy. Myself again. I wanted someone to tell me what changed; I wanted someone to tell me why I could not answer my own questions anymore.
Then it hit me. A gear shifted, it had changed. I was me again. I had regained my sight to see, see the beauty in even the smallest of things.
Each day was new again. Slowly, ever so slowly, I regained control. Sleep came once again, dreams came, they were not so bitter.
My smile was not forced. The clouds parted, the sun radiated and felt good, it felt warm; it was welcomed.
But what had changed?
I finally let you go.
The Beginning
By Luis Marguia
We started as nothing,
as enemies. We didn’t have anything that connected us.
No single relationship. We were snotty
brats, immature. No hopes or
dreams. The shattered dreams.
It took a strong person
To bring us together with her cleverness.
We came together.
We are the Troubadours.