Ivy and I have,
actually, finally gotten a placement. We will be teaching one class,
an hour and a half, at the Bay Area Public School in July. This is
part of a larger summer-long session in which participants, who will
be 13-20 years old, will engage in poetry workshops. Each week, a
different poet(s) will be leading the class. The class we will be
conducting is called “Weirdness as Rebellion: Experimental Music
Through Writing.” We will be looking at performances by composers
John Cage and Sun Ra, and then will respond in a way that is similar
to our demo we conducted last semster for CTP. What I really want to
stress is for participants to engage with their weirdness, and to
understand that everyone is weird and that they should embrace their
own unique weirdness and cultivate that.
It seems obvious that it is all about who you know. And in this case, it's again true. It is only through our connections with the Bay Area poetry scene that we were able to get in on this program. I'm very grateful. That's how things work, I guess. I just hope we can eventually expand this class into something more. Now that we have connections with the Bay Area Public School I'm sure that will all be much easier to do.
Congratulations Ivy and Housten! This is great news. Your tenacity paid off and you will be teaching your workshop.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of embracing one's weirdness. Besides building self-confidence, it normalizes weirdness. We've all been told since we were wee ones that everyone is unique (there's no one just like you because biology won't allow it) but to deepen the idea by embracing "every one is weird" is brilliant. You are so weird and I am so weird. And Ivy--so weird! Love you guys, Darin