Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School
December 1, 2021
This poetry collection celebrates more than 20 years of students' writing from Chicago's Oak Park and River Forest High School Spoken Word Club. Since its founding by Kahn in 1999, the OPRFHS Spoken Word Club has inspired its members, who have won numerous accolades, published their work in prestigious journals, and studied creative writing at top universities. Collected here are dozens of poems by former members of the club, curated by groundbreaking poets Abdurraqib, Choi, Kahn, and Sullivan. The poems are organized by theme, starting with the localized "Notes From Here," which offers meditations on Chicago's uniquely complicated landscape, and ending with the haunting section of "Survival Tactics," which showcases the resilience that develops in the face of hardship. The young poets featured in these pages hold nothing back, spilling their souls into spellbinding odes to pain, hope, and justice and delving into intensely personal subject matter: Asia Calcagno writes of being born in "A conditional war zone--a consequence / of blessings"; Vann Harris imagines raising a mixed-race child and muses on the violent legacy of slavery: "For my proverbial daughter's father, I am / a mantelpiece. A feast. A storehouse for his seed"; RC Davis laments a funeral where "these words will buzz around the room: / Sister. Granddaughter. Young woman./ No one will use they/them pronouns in my eulogy." The variety of content, poetic styles, and perspective ensures broad appeal. Electric and expansive. (about the club, contributor credits) (Poetry. 12-18)
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April 1, 2022
Gr 9 Up-The impact and legacy of Chicago's Oak Park and River Forest High School's Spoken Word Club is celebrated in a collection of poems penned by current and former students. This collection includes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess, who points out one of the great strengths of the collection-it is, in part, a love letter to Chicago. Among the alumni included in the collection are poetry personality Dan "Sully" Sullivan, National Youth Poets Laureate Kara Jackson and Natalie Richardson, and NBA basketball champion Iman Shumpert. Timely and evocative topics cover a wide range, including a family member's death because of COVID, racism, a reunion with an incarcerated parent, deportation, sexuality, coming of age, and the birth of a child. Many of the poems in the collection are penned by alumni of the program and reflect an older perspective, which creates a slight dissonance in the collection when coupled with poems by current or recent graduates of the program. Although the title champions the power of poetry and having a poetry program, those looking for a "how do I start a program" resource will not find much to glean other than in the brief introduction and chapter headings. VERDICT An optional purchase for large poetry collections or schools and libraries with strong poetry or spoken word programs.-Jennifer Knight
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