What they Teachin’ them

To be artist is to survive on nothing

as school programs do when they cater to cultures beyond whiteness

To be artist is to put all your broken pieces together and create the new, the reborn

the revitalized only to be gentried for the kids who end up moved from their hoods

To be creative is to make ink out of your own blood

put that ink into the latest state testing booklet with no hope of saving your school

To be creative is to laugh at how they redid the school playground

but never gave you chalk for the blacktop because when you learn words you practice graffiti

To be writer is to traverse language on an unwritten border

between the strict vernaculars of schools and the slangs spoken on your home street

To be writer is to speak in tongues that were almost forgotten

and to see your old schools teach your message without its meaning

To be imaginative is to make up new words for when the ones you were taught don’t fit

so you finally remember a heritage of gold made by people who walked over broken glass

To be imaginative is to know that the street’ s potholes and cracked sidewalks are a language

you best learn to translate; “they don't care about us” and “we’ll make do with what we got”

To be storyteller is to hold onto the names and faces of those you witness

and play eulogist for those who no longer be – even when nobody originally cared

To be storyteller is to keep places in memory that have long been torn down, replaced

as the new kids come in with no recollection of what was once before