TWAP Journal

Workshop at the Bloomingdale Library in June

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:23:00 +0000

We have been invited to run a workshop at the Bloomingdale Public Library in Bloomingdale, Illinois on Wednesday, June 18 from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM. If you don't mind traveling, we would love to see you out there.

Two of our poets, Kitty and Qoca, will be on hand to lead the workshop (along with Ms. Z, of course. But who wants to hear from her when Kitty and Qoca are so much more interesting?)

The agenda will go something like this:

We will have a getting to know you exercise (nothing too scary or embarrassing). Then we will discuss various techniques for the technical aspects of poetry (That's where our poets come in). Next we will offer you a couple of formal forms you can try. As a group we will endeavor to create a poem that will go down in history. Finally we hope that by the time you are done you will create something on your own that you would be glad to publish in our e-zine or some other publication.

I can't wait to see you there.

Cold, Hard Optimism

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:05:00 +0000

It is another dangerously cold day in Chicago. Once I step outside the cold winter air slaps me in the face. Instead of continuing on, I want to run back inside and stay there for the remainder of the winter season. The sidewalks are filled with people making it almost impossible to move. Once I finally reach my destination I am greeted by a familiar sound. It is a sound that is hard to avoid once you move to a big city like Chicago. I turn around and he asks me again, “Do you have change to spare. ”

Like the many skyscrapers that you find in this city, he stands tall as he approaches the people that pass by. When he speaks his voice is surprisingly cheerful given the situation that he is in. Even when he is denied the money that he so desperately needs, he is always in good spirits. I find quite amazing that a man who sleeps on the cold, hard, and sometimes wet ground has a smile painted on his face everyday. It almost seems as though he enjoys living the way he does.

Whenever I leave for home he is always there. He sits by his rusted old grocery cart, which looks like it is about to fall apart, and sings songs for the pedestrians that walk by. Usually, like the many others, I just keep on walking, but today I stop and listen. As he sings his voice cracks and you can tell that the winter weather has taken a toll on him. While he is singing he holds out an old, dirty Chicago Bears hat for people to tip him. Not many people do, but I make sure I throw in a couple of dollars before I leave. He says Thank you and quickly returns to Silent Night.

Spring has arrived and there he sits just as cheerful as ever. The only difference that I have noticed is he no longer wears the filthy Chicago Cubs jacket that kept him somewhat warm during the brutally cold winter months. Yesterday, while I was walking to work I noticed that he had bread crumbs scattered throughout his gray beard. I was pleased to know that he was at least eating something; Even if it might have been someone else’s leftovers that he found in the nearby garbage can.

Today was not like the other days. As I walked by where he usually sat I saw nothing. I saw no rusted old grocery cart; I didn’t even see the cardboard sign that read please help me. He just disappeared. I’m almost positive that never again will I come across someone as optimistic as he was. He was living in the most terrible conditions, but I never once saw him complain. Even when people walked by and laughed at him he still held his head up high. I never in my life thought I would have so much respect for someone who was homeless, but I was wrong.

Tyler, 16

Behind the Door

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:46:00 +0000

Since when have these been the coolest clothes
Or the coolest way to dress??
Since when has this been the coolest thing?
I can't take a guess.
Have you ever really took the time
To look beyond the glittery face,
To think of what they don't have
Behind that silky lace?
These people have nothing.
Not a soul nor a heart.
They don't think of others.
From themselves they cannot part.
Yet we try to be like them
In every kind of way.
We imitate them
How they eat, act, or say.
We all want to be like them.
But really what for?
We've lost our self-esteem
Because the truth is . . .
there's nothing behind the door.

Erin E

Special

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:40:00 +0000

They are always in our thoughts,
They are always in our dreams,
They are always with us,
In our time of need.
These people who are with us,
All the time through and through,
Those special people of the world,
Help make our dream come true.
People with disabilities,
They are never wrong
To believe in themselves
And know that they belong.

Erin E., 13

Autumn

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:33:00 +0000

Autumn
I can sense fall coming
Just around the corner
My whole being rejoices
Like the crowds on July 4th
The sights and sounds release me
They complete me
The reds, the oranges, and yellows
The browns and the golds
All the colors surround me
Like a rainbow of my own
The crunching beneath my feet
There's no other sound like it
The thoughts of fresh apple pie
Hot cider and piles of leaves
Fill my thoughts
I become like a greedy child at Christmas
Looking forward to the next delight
Jumping into piles of freshly fallen leaves
Fill me with exhilaration beyond compare
Raking my favorite past time
I look for decorations filling every yard
Eagerly awaiting October 31st
My favorite season comes
Knocking on my door
I greet it like an old friend
I sense fall coming
Just around the corner
Just around the corner
Just around...
IT'S HERE

Lizzie

A Question of the Ages

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:02:00 +0000

ARS Poetic-a

Question to pick up and run with
Or an idea with which to wander?

How can I recreate my emotions,
With only a pen?
And if I spoke of them once,
Would my stories happen again?

Would people from my past resurrect themselves?
It's been a long time
Can men change to correct themselves?
Change from the chains of their gangs and pick up the pieces since they fell?

I usually don't ask questions,
Because answers don't come.

So I write these lines in my notebook,
Just for kicks, or for fun.

But now back to the question

Could I recreate the flesh of the figures of my imagination?
Bring about the blood to beings for rhyme and reason?

Should I try and let ink flow like blood
From people in Guatemala?

Does our government still saga
Indigenous massacres in America
places like the the U.S. and Nicaragua?

Is there such thing as purposeful poetry
Without flaws?

If when, a rebel owns a pen
Would that bring him cause?

Aw Shit!

Too many questions come to mind at the time
Lets just stick to the question of
ARS Poetica

7.28.2007

Qoc'avib Kab'lajuj K'at
Revolorio Feltes

If I publish here, what rights do you want?

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:48:00 +0000

Rights are a very important concern for a writer. Your work is your intellectual property and should not be given away freely without any thought of its future. Teen Writers and Artists Project is striving to provide a showcase for your work that will allow a wider audience to become acquainted with your work and see your talent. We are also hoping to create a community where you can workshop with each other online and build your skills and strengthen your work.

When you publish on this site, we request one time publication rights and, don't worry, if we ever had a chance to make money from your work, you would be contacted and the proper arrangements negotiated so you would make money too.This site exists to help you realize your full potential as a writer or an artist and has no intention of taking advantage of your intellectual efforts.

Thank you for being concerned. Guard your intellectual property well.

Prompts

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:16:00 +0000

This summer I will be posting prompts to the board in order to encourage you to keep writing. Take some time to write to the prompt. If you are a regular TWAP author, you can post directly to the board. If you are new to the group, you are welcome to participate, email your response to us with the piece in the body of the message and after reviewing it, we will post it to our page.

The Rain By: Qoc’avib

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:12:00 +0000

I remember when, it rained
on sunny days in the tropics,
Lush, bright, humid, steamy

How, when the rain hit,
It was like,
Invoking avidity for emotions
A poetic ecstasy
Let’s call it, orgasmic

Tell me if you’re feeling me

Euphoria, listening to the rain strike the rooftops
Of the house three doors down…
Two doors…

Next door…

Haaa… I could only bite my lip and release
the muscles tensed inside me as

It hit my open aired shelter
Listening, was the equivalent to a massage
Utterly uplifting, relaxing
To listen to the shower’s raining lead,
pelting the zinc roof up top

Picture a bucketful of water
Never loosening its intensity
Poured slowly, on top of the lean-to

Imagining myself, totally engulfed by the rain
Letting the silky slick drops, saturate my sodden skin,
On that sweaty summer evening

For days and nights on end, the rhythmic cascades wouldn’t stop

Or other times,
The downpour wouldn’t last ten minutes
Not nearly long enough even to raise the dust
from the dirt
Off the street
Let alone convert it to mud

But when it did stop,

It just vanished, like an unfinished sentence. . .

Leaving everyone with this feeling of uncertainty

Glancing over their shoulders
As though they had lost something

But not quite sure what…

Bridges and Air Waves By: Kitty M

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:02:00 +0000

Sitting on the sides of bridges
Let's imagine car crashes
We'll sip our kerosene
And take a deep breath
Blue and Yellow balloons
Float over our heads
And their red strings sway with the movement of the wind
Past them lies the sky
Grey and damp
Stained
As if a paint brush carelessly stained a dirty piece of paper
With stiff bristles
Leaving wispy white clouds
Light and feathery
Almost translucent
Look through them at the sky
Little girls
In light blue dresses
On the edge of this vast bridge
Swing their feet
Covered with lacy white socks
And shiny black shoes
Giggles escape little smiles
And pink bows hold playful locks of brown hair in place
A lollipop falls
So does the hand that held it
We see this little girl
Disappear
As here sister sits and waits patiently
For her to emerge from the waters below.

Photo By: Kendra B

The Stone Man By: Samantha P

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:51:00 +0000

I have watched the stone man crumble, lying helpless beneath pristine white sheets; silver needles jutting from his arms. Hospitals can’t help a dying man; and this prison of lab coats has yet to bring him any good. I have watched him toss and turn, imprisoned by the fawning clutches of sterile gloves and tangled sheets. I have listened to his groans of agony; pain unseen. His cries reach out into the night, desperate for some stray; yet there is only mine. How can one so noble, so strong, wait so alone for death? When I gaze into his bloodshot eyes, only the devil stares patiently back. And during the longest hours of the opaque night, those most unbearable, I hear him sob her name. Perhaps it is not these scarlet wounds, these tube-like claws, these nameless painkillers that are weathering my mountain, perhaps it is instead the memories of smiling faces, warm love, wedding bells...angry words, and screeching tires. He must know by now of the horror and the sin. She died at his hands, and like any garden statue, my stone, now but a pebble, fears not death but the emptiness of living alone. After all, as grandpa always said; “Hospitals can’t help a dying man; and there isn’t a soul can coax the broken heart to beat...”

Photo by: Kendra Barnes

Statistically Shamed By: Elise N

noreply@blogger.com (Teen Writers And Artists Project) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:05:00 +0000

The syringe in her arm, her love in her veins

Travels through her crimson life and up into her brain.

The lights go dim, her breathing shorts, the floor is coming closer

Hard linoleum meets her face as her friends call her mediocre.

Pictures flash like Polaroid’s through her mind.

She sifts through her distorted memories for there’s one she has to find:

Her father in his chair, his love in his hand,

White powder bags scattered the room as he took his only stand.

Through her childhood that was all she saw to blame.

Everywhere she went statistics said she would turn out the same.

So she thought, “Why not have a ball?

I may as well be high before I eventually fall.”

One experiment led to another, and now her love was her obsession.

Everywhere she looked she had no other possession,

Her friends told her “yes” when her suppressed common sense told her “no.”

She believed there wasn’t any length to which she wouldn’t go.

Now lying on the floor with blood dripping from her eyes

She got her only clear view of her wasted life.

Started, jarred, jerked back to the now,

She awoke out of her first party and the only thought in her mind was “How?”

Her eyes were no longer bloodshot; her arms had no scars;

Her face was still taut, and her teeth were unmarred.

Was this still a dream or was it realistic?

Now that she had her life back,

She’d be damned if she’d be a statistic.

She looked around the room and saw her friends’ love in their hands,

White powder bags scatter the room

As she takes her stand.

Watching her feet as she walks toward the door,

Her love falls from her hand as she vows to become more.