{"id":54143,"date":"2015-06-02T00:28:17","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T10:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaii.carpentermediagroup.com\/midweekpro\/?p=54143"},"modified":"2015-06-01T09:29:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:29:01","slug":"an-ode-to-keiki-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaii.carpentermediagroup.com\/midweekpro\/an-ode-to-keiki-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"An Ode To Keiki Creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

A poet-in-residency program at Palolo Elementary School awakens young minds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Who is an alien?
\nYour best friend? Y
\nour Mom, your Dad?
\nOr even your pet?
\nDo their eyes sparkle
\nlike moonlight?
\nOr is their skin blue?
\nNo offense,
\nbut could it be you? <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Cheyanne Grimball,
\nfourth grade <\/strong><\/p>\n

The grassy hills of Palolo Elementary School bustle with more excitement than usual as fourth- and fifth-graders flood toward the library. <\/p>\n

\u201cMom, hurry, the party\u2019s starting, and I need to read my poem,\u201d urges one little girl. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the finale of a poet-inresidency program, in which decorated author and university teacher Laurel Nakanishi has been nurturing seeds of creativity in students, that bloom into poems like the above, Who is an Alien?<\/em> <\/p>\n

From Hawaii, schooled in Missoula, living in Miami and having taught in Japan and in an ongoing program throughout Nicaragua (through a Fulbright scholarship), Nakanishi loves coming home, where her passion is sharing her knowledge with thirsty, neophyte minds. <\/p>\n

Does the equation add up: Poetry plus 9- and 10-yearolds? Nakanishi says yes \u2014 they\u2019re often more receptive than high school or college students. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe younger they are,\u201d she says, \u201cthe more open they are to playing creatively with language. To having fun with words, ideas and possibilities. It\u2019s a joy to teach them because they\u2019re so willing to use their unique point of view on the world to create these poems.\u201d <\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n

Nakanishi belongs to a program called Writers in Schools, run by Pacific Writers\u2019 Connection. Dr. Takiora Ingram, founder and executive director of PWC, has been hosting the program for the past eight years, and also has placed poets in Likelike Elementary, and Halau Lokahi and Halau Ku Mana Hawaiian charter schools. As to how the Writers in Schools Program came about, says Ingram: <\/p>\n

\u201cWe (PWC) were focusing on adults because we run adult writing workshops, and we do book launches as well. I noticed that not many of the books coming through were written by local people, so I said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to start with the kids.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

One of her program directors was familiar with a Writers in Schools Program in Missoula, so they invited members from Montana to come to Hawaii to help set up the program. Over the course of events, the Montana folks mentioned that they knew a Hawaii woman who had just received her MFA from the University of Montana and had the perfect skill set \u2014 fluency in poetry and in teaching keiki. Thus Nakanishi came on board, and after taking on 60 Palolo students last year, she expanded to 80 this year. Many of this year\u2019s fifth-graders had studied with Nakanishi in fourth grade. On her return, she says, they greeted her excitedly, inquiring about her time in Nicaragua, where Nakanishi teaches in Spanish. <\/p>\n

Nakanishi has created somewhat of a cultural exchange, bringing videos of her Nicaraguan students to Hawaii, and now that this year\u2019s Hawaii poetry residency has come to an end, she\u2019s heading back to Nicaragua and bringing her students there postcards from the Palolo kids. <\/p>\n

During her six-week program at Palolo, Nakanishi taught twice a week, turning four different classes into realms of unchecked imagination and self-expression. On the final day, students lined up at the mic to proudly recite their poems to a room packed with teachers, parents and fellow class members. Some students\u2019 delivery was precocious, others stumbled to get their words out. Some let their embarrassed gaze fall on the floor, but by the end of their poems, they were beaming, glancing up with the broadest of smiles at the cheering crowd. Right before our eyes, they went from shy and withdrawn to enjoying confidence in their writing, reading and recitation. <\/p>\n

Some poems elicited laughs, others, with their surprising maturity, caught onlookers by the throat, like New Orleans, by Jahna Littlejohn: <\/p>\n


\nI\u2019m in New Orleans.
\nI hear jazz music
\nplaying all around.
\nI see people ready
\nto dance. I see
\nmy uncle laying dead.
\nHe got shot.
\nIt was sad.
\nMy mom had to fly
\nthere and take care of him.
\nPoor uncle, I miss him bad. <\/em>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

To get their ink flowing, Nakanishi would introduce a topic or poetry form, and she\u2019d share examples from professional poets, but particularly appreciated by the children were examples from fellow children across the globe. <\/p>\n

\u201cI introduced them to a lot of local poets,\u201d she says. \u201cI depended on local voices to really show them role models right on their own islands.\u201d <\/p>\n

Most of the classroom time was spent writing. By the end of the workshop, the children from each grade had compiled an anthology. Themes provided to the children include \u201cJourneys,\u201d \u201cQuestions Without Answers,\u201d and the ever-popular \u201cMonster Pet,\u201d among others. <\/p>\n

From \u201cQuestions Without Answers,\u201d Brandon Lukas asked, How Fast Can I Spin?, a bubbly ode to the bundles of energy that inhabit elementary school classrooms: <\/p>\n


\nHow fast can I spin?
\nuntil I hit the ground
\nHow fast can I spin?
\nuntil I get dizzy
\nHow fast can I spin?
\nuntil I make a sound
\nHow fast can I spin?
\nuntil I feel crazy<\/em>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

In the theme of \u201cJourneys,\u201d Eric Jeto delivers Sad Ways, a poignant tribute to his mom, as equally a piquant inner journey as a physical one: <\/p>\n


\nI can see my mom
\nsaying she was crying
\nand, I tell my mom:
\nMom,
\nas long as we are here,
\nwe still love each other
\nAnd we were at the beach
\nseeing the sun, sunset. <\/em>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

Side by side, the next two offerings commemorate the past with the theme of \u201cI Remember \u2026\u201d. The first, Pancakes by Kaleb Jackson, appeals to the senses, a sort of junior version of Proust and the madeleines that sent him into instant and vivid sensory immersion in a bygone moment: <\/p>\n


\nI remember the first time I ate pancakes
\nwith chocolate oozing out of it.
\nI was so clumsy, I got chocolate in my hair.
\nAll the time when I go to my Papa\u2019s house,
\nI wake up and say, \u201cI smell pancakes.\u201d <\/em>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

The second, Birds Flying<\/em>, by Jeniva Kapiriel finds a surprising mathematical connection in a graceful moment in nature: <\/p>\n


\nI remember when I saw birds flying
\ninto the shape of a triangle.
\nI saw a right angle in that triangle.<\/em>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

Under \u201cMetaphors,\u201d Kevin Phan gives us insight into a child\u2019s mind as he sits and waits anxiously, in Testing<\/em>: <\/p>\n


\nWaiting in the test room
\nI check as the clock ticks.
\nThe room was a giant glass box.
\nLater, I yawn and yawn more.
\nSitting in my chair
\nas if a giant rock is on me.
\nWaiting for something to happen.
\nAs I wait, I look at the clock ticking.<\/em>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

These young voices demonstrate candid contemplations, and Nakanishi says she hopes their new skills will guide them, whether in elation or when the going gets tough. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they keep on being open to this way of seeing the world,\u201d she says. \u201cSo much of the time, we are asking students to have one right answer. But in poetry, there are so many different right answers. The most original and most creative will be rewarded the most. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping they keep an openness to problem solving and apply it to their school and home life. That they can think outside the box when they\u2019re encountering any kind of problem. Some of these kids live kind of rough lives, so if they can have poetry and writing as a way to deal with whatever they\u2019re dealing with \u2014 especially fifth-graders going to middle school and becoming teenagers pretty soon \u2014 here\u2019s a tool. They can walk into difficult situations with this tool. On the page, they can be whoever they want to be, they can express themselves and deal with whatever they\u2019re dealing with. I\u2019m hoping they have that as they go forward.\u201d <\/p>\n

While Palolo teachers have been particularly receptive to the program, PWC hopes to spread the program to more schools, while making new partnerships with teachers, and tapping into more grants to fund the program\u2019s expansion. The parent Writers in Schools Program in Montana is so established that writers gravitate toward it, notes Nakanishi. She hopes to similarly grow Hawaii\u2019s program, so more of our keiki can explore rightbrain problem-solving and soar on creative wings, while simultaneously fulfilling core curriculum requirements in writing fluency. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, here and now, 80 children, their eyes sparkling with future promise, elatedly line up to hug \u201cMiss Nakanishi\u201d and get her autograph in their newly compiled book of poetry. And there\u2019s a poem inside, proudly bearing each child\u2019s name. Among them, no doubt, a few budding authors have just experienced their first published work. <\/p>\n

For more information, or to support the program, visit pacificwriters.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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