Taylor Comes to Town

I have had an incredible week! Taylor Mali was at our school, working with our students and performing in assemblies. It was amazing to meet him-have dinner with him and the rest of my department- and watch him work with my students. He has so many clever ways of getting the students to open up and explore all of the things that are in their heads; it was inspiring.

I also loved watching my male students really come out of their shells. I am part of an all female English department and while it's definitely a fantastic estrogen zone, I thought that it was so important for the boys at our school to see a "cool creative poet guy" in action. They were impressed and talking about it in the halls all day today. He definitely set our school buzzing!

Taylor Mali dedicates much of his poetry to future teacher recruitment and so it was a nice chance to feel a bit of validation for my career choice.

This is the poem that I first heard Taylor Mali present....

Quite a few of his poems contain a humorous element and he had the kids rolling in the aisles laughing for almost the whole hour...But when he delivered this poem he stunned the students into silence. They were all affected by it. Complete silence when he finished. It's a heavy poem but I love his comparisons and how he is so brutally honest about his past experiences.

So yes... it's been a great week!