It is Christmas
and I am outside playing snowmen,
I mean snow women.
My grandmother, my mother,
my grandfather, my father, and I are all
outside lighting firecrackers.

The sound is loud as gunshots.
It hurts my eardrums but
the fireworks are colorful.
They look like flowers in
the night sky. It is real
cold outside. I am wearing
a pink, fluffy coat. The firecrackers
are flying up in the sky. My God-
brother and I are eating some of the
snowflakes as they fall. I smell fire
from the firecrackers, a sparkler in my hand
feels funny. I am throwing snowballs
at my family and they are throwing them
back to me. I let them hit me.
They’re cold.

Inside we have a contest to see
who can open their presents first. We drink
eggnog and we eat Santa cookies
and Rudolph cookies. We eat Popeye’s
chicken thighs, red beans and rice, and for dessert
we have Popeye’s apple pie. It’s still warm
in my mouth when we play
hide and seek in the backyard.

Whoever gets hit with a snowball is it.
I go across the street to get my best friend
and we play until my grandmother
comes to get me to go to my
great-grandmother’s house.
I like Christmas.

By Xythia, 10 years old

The stars spins at night and

kiss the planets while plants get

ready for bed. The flowers

open in the morning and

dogs bark at the grass.

I believe in peace as the

stars travel through the sky

and come back again at night.

by Ebony, age 11

photo by [Kane] via flickr

It’s hot here, so far from Managua.
The sun fell out of the raining clouds.
And now I’m drinking lemonade.
The ice clinks into the sound
of kids screaming down
slides and in the pools.
The sea is a light blue
like the sky over your house
in the afternoons.
My hotel is named Atlantis,
but I’m not going to sink into the ocean.

by Miguel, 3rd grade

Former WITS writer Stacy Parker Aab has published a new book entitled, Government Girl.  Stacy has had quite a career thus far with various government titles and stints across the globe.  She also has worked with Writers in the Schools programs both in Houston and Detroit.  The five years she spent in the White House as an aide are the basis for this fascinating insight into what it is like to be a young idealistic woman in the White House.

Stacy chronicled her time working for the Clinton administration with honesty and wit.  Quite refreshingly, she doesn’t shy away from or downplay the more controversial events during those years at the White House.  She talks openly about how she learned from what went on around her and how she achieved success for herself in what has traditionally been a “boy’s club.”

Although she is currently busy traveling and promoting her book, Stacy now calls New York City home.  She also blogs for the Huffington Post and has worked on a project called McSweeney’s Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath.  Stacy has been a major part of this effort document the stories and oral histories of the many people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Skateboarding
There’s a Harlem Renaissance in my Head
Ode to Poetry
Who I Am
To Hear Butterflies Sing
The Color Pink by Sarah
The Leaf
Essay Writing Contest for Kids: Do You Dare
Write a Poem for Barack Obama
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss
Spiral Poem
Yellow
Colors and Blah
I am a Seashell
Ode to Chocolate

My heart is
a candle blown out with a lovely sound.
My heart is made
of African-Americans
hugging for freedom. My
heart is made
of chocolate
eaten for
love. My heart!

My heart is
is made of a person hugging
seeing the sun a person who needs
set. My heart helps. My heart is
is made of made of cookies
cookies baking in the that are ready. My
oven waiting heart is
to be done. a seed waiting
to grow into a
rose. My heart is
made of eating
chocolates with my
family. My heart is
a candle
blown out with all my
bad times and good times.

by Alejandro, 3rd grade

photo by KayVeeINC via flickr

Gratitude looks like someone getting a present.
Gratitude smells like turkey on Thanksgiving.
Gratitude sounds like two angels talking.
Gratitude feels like the golden rule.
Gratitude tastes like warm vanilla cake.

By Pyper, 2nd grade
[photo by Igh75 via flickr]

InsideOut Founder Terry Blackhawk, City Wide Poet Lena Cintron, and First Lady Michelle Obama at the Coming Up Taller Award Ceremony 2009

InsideOut Literary Arts Project, a member of the WITS Alliance headquartered in Detroit, has been nationally recognized as one of 15 youth arts and humanities programs to receive the prestigious 2009 Coming Up Taller Award. They received the award for City Wide Poets, an after school writing and performance program. For more information, click here.

Robin Davidson is a busy person.  Not only is she a full time professor of English at University of Houston Downtown, she’s also the president of the board of directors at Writers in the Schools.  And if that wasn’t enough, she just had her first book published by Northwestern University Press.

The book, The New Century: Poems by Ewa Lipska, is a collection of poems by a post-World War II era poet from Poland.  Ewa Lipska is regarded as one of the most important poets of her day but until now her work has not been translated widely.  The New Century is the first collection of Lipska’s poems to appear in English.   Robin Davidson co-translated the poems with Ewa Elzbieta Nowakowska and authored the foreword.

Crisp pages
Smell like wood,
Floating across your face.
Inky black words,
Like an artist’s work,
Play pictures in your head.
Feel the crispy paper
Like sandstone
Across your hand.
How fun it is
To read books
Which play a movie in your head.
A play,
A picture,
Even a collage
How fun it is,
To read books.
Eyes sweeping the pages,
Trying to grab as many words as possible.
To play,
The greatest quality,
To play,
To live,
To learn.

By Jonathan, 6th grade
[photo by clear as crystal via flickr]

When life is hard,
I cough away negativity.

When everything goes wrong,
I shout for happiness to return.

When I’m struggling,
I whisper to my sister for help.

When I need strength,
I open myself to God.

When the world falls apart,
I sweep the pieces together

and make a new picture.

By Jessica, age 13
[photo by ThankGravity via flickr]

The cold breeze
blows love to me and
warms my Corazon.
The blood flows
under my feet and
makes a river.
The sidewalk is made
out of daisies, and El Mar
is deep and wide.
This is the beginning of
El Futuro.

by Elizabeth, 6th grade

I, the star god,
Take bones from the
Underworlds of past times
To create mankind.
Xanath, meaning star,
Another story for
Another night. Tomorrow’s
Sun will be here to wake
Us up soon enough.
Let us go to our mats
Now and sleep
As the stars up above.
A shining light
The light of the night.

by Lorena, 6th grade

Students in grades 7-12 from the U.S., Canada, and American schools abroad are eligible to enter the annual contest sponsored by Scholastic Books. Check out their site for more information.

Former WITS Writer Radames Ortiz and Houston poets Lupe Mendez and Byron Jones have joined forces to bring Houston @Wired: A Multimedia Explosion of Poetry. @Wired is a revolutionary approach to exposing the literary masses to a new type of poetry reading. By incorporating social media, music, song, imagery and technology to enhance their poetic performances, @Wired seeks to reconstruct the poetry reading and to engage local creatives to actively participate in making a unique event even more special.

WHEN: Friday, November 13, 2009 at 8 pm

WHERE: Rudolph Projects ArtScan Gallery, 1836 Richmond Ave, Houston, TX 77098

COST: Free

I hang upside down.

Red blood rushes to my head.

My tail curls on wire.

by Lillian, 3rd grade

Answer: I am an opossum.

The Blue Pencil Online is edited and produced by the students in the Writing & Publishing Program at Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Massachusetts. The magazine seeks to publish the best of literary work in English by young writers (12–18). You can find out how to submit to this journal on their website. You can even submit online!

Mini-mice mounting the mad

manta-rays mopping the moon.

They look at machinery,

picking up mysterious metal messages

in bottles, maybe from Martians!

by Lewis, 3rd grade

illustration from “Tillie and the Wall” by Leo Lionni

Once, I went to the woods with my family.
I saw the most beautiful mountains and
lakes. The mountains were the colors of
the rainbow. The lake was clear as glass.
The fish were delicious. In these woods I
tasted the juiciest apples and sweetest
strawberries. Even on a hot day, the
temperature of the lake was still freezing
cold. The waterfall sounded very smooth.
My brother, my dad, and I went hiking.
We found a cave, and inside the cave was
filled with beautiful red, gold, and blue
colors that surrounded us like a cage.
South Oklahoma was like heaven.

By Jonathan Michael, 4th grade
[photo by l'herf via flickr]

If no one was watching I would
say good-bye to the stars in
the night. I would stay in my room writing
about the world, telling myself
how I love my family. I would write
a song of love without anything
to get in my way. I would kiss the moon
because I love you so much. I would do
anything for you because I love you
so much. “You are the love in my
life,” I would tell you up close,
and you would tell me, “I do, too.”

By Laila, 3rd grade
[photo by Aggatho via flickr]

They’re the darkest you’ll ever see.
I don’t know how, but you can see
hurricanes and tornados emerging,
you can watch blue fish swim
through the deepest rivers. Pay close
attention, and you can see glass as
it shakes from lightning. Don’t get
too close, or you will see the
whirling snow revolving around and
around. Watch as the clouds move
to show the moon reflecting off the water.
When you take your last look, be still.
You will see the spider web as it gets
tangled up in lies.

By Kadijah, 7th grade
[photo by remo via flickr]

Dear Snowy,

You are a big tree. You carry a lot of nature and hold baby birds. You look like a big giraffe because you have a long and tall trunk. I’m tall, too. Your leaves look like hair and your branches look like my arms. When I touch you, you feel a little rough.

Your colors are pink, yellow, and white. I like your name, “snow” with a “y” at the end. I name you that because you remind me of winter, and in the winter your leaves fall down, and they look like falling snow. In the spring when you come back, you will be the same, won’t you, Snowy?

By Cassandra, 3rd grade

[photo by Jenny Downing via flickr]

Former WITS writer Jericho Brown’s book, Please, was recently given the 2009 American Book Award.  Since its release by New Issues, the book has been critically acclaimed and is now in its third printing.  He is currently at Cambridge on a Bunting Fellowship.

Jericho was also named a great “debut poet” of 2008 by Poets and Writers.  His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, and Oxford American among others.  Jericho received his MFA from the University of New Orleans and was a speechwriter for the mayor of New Orleans before coming to Houston to earn his PhD in literature and creative writing.

Jericho has been a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland.