Leanne Dunic is a BC-based poet and winner of the Alice Munro Short Story Contest in 2015. She is both a songwriter and a poet, and her most recent collection, “One and a Half of You,” was published by Talonbooks in 2021. It is a poetic memoir chronicling a child of biracial origin growing up in British Columbia.
Dunic’s work is deeply connected to the place she grew up. What part of your and your personality are a result of the place you’ve grown up?
Lucy and Linh tells the story of Lucy, a Vietnamese-Australian high school student on scholarship at a fancy new private school that offers her an escape from the poverty of her home neighbourhood. The three most popular girls at her new school, The Cabinet, welcome her in and soon Lucy is at risk of losing her connection to Linh, the only remaining link Lucy has to her past self and life. [Content Warning: Mature themes and mature language]
A former teacher, Alice Pung is also a solicitor and a former Artist in Residence at the University of Melbourne. Lucy and Linh is the western adaption of her original novel, Laurinda, published in 2014. Lucy and Linh was selected as an NPR Best Book of the Year as well as a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection.
Have you ever experienced a time where you did not like the person you were becoming?
What changes our mind? Our hearts?
Starfish tells the story of Kiko Himura, a half-Japanese high school student in Grade 12 who struggles with self image and self worth while growing up in a town without many other Asian people. When she is rejected by her dream art school, Prism, she is crushed, but decides to spend her summer touring art schools on the West Coast with her friend in order to escape a traumatic family incident from her past. [Content Warning: Mature language throughout and mature themes including abuse and attempted suicide]
Starfish is Akemi Dawn-Bowman's first novel and has garnered numerous accolades and praiseworthy reviews, including being a 2018 William C. Morris Award finalist and the 2020 Winner of the MeMo Award for Best Teen Novel. It reminds the reader of the importance of accepting yourself for who you are, despite what others are thinking
Have you ever had trouble accepting yourself for who you are?
Samara Cole Doyon hails from Maine, descended from Haitian migrants to the United States. This beautiful poem articulates the author's hope that "all children [can] embrace and celebrate the many vibrant pieces of themselves". The poem is made even more moving through lovely, exuberant illustrations by Kaylani Juanita.
Prompt: With what colour do you most identify? Why? What does your favourite colour say about you?
American Born Chinese is a graphic novel that does a great job of showing three different perspectives of what it's like to be Chinese. Following the only Chinese-American in a new school, the renowned Monkey King - subject of many Chinese fables, and a character who represents all of the classic negative Chinese stereotypes, Gene Yang shows three different stories that ultimately lead to each other at the end of the novel.
What do you think it would be like to be the new kid at a school where you didn't know anyone?
Cecily Nicholson is the recipient of the 2018 Governor General's Award for poetry.
Write about your favourite activity, with a focus on sensory details and imagery.
Brown earned a PhD from the University of Houston, an MFA from the University of New Orleans, and a BA from Dillard University. He is the recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Brown is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing program at Emory University in Atlanta. Historical context: The current movement fighting police brutality against Black American citizens.
Write a poem about a social, cultural, or legal issue that you think needs addressing.
Elizabeth Alexander’s careful, precise poetry and her awareness of history, especially African American history, as well as her personal friendship with the Obamas, made her a natural choice as President Obama’s inaugural poet. Alexander became only the fourth poet ever asked to read at a presidential inauguration, and her poem, “Praise Song for the Day” was heard and watched by billions worldwide. Based on traditional African praise songs, which commemorate the life of an individual in an incantatory call-and-response, Alexander’s poem focused less on President Obama and more on ordinary Americans, attempting to describe the details, languages and encounters that shape their lives. Alexander gestured toward the history of the Civil Rights Movement and its importance to the occasion—“Say it plain, that many have died for this day”—but also attempted to summarize a national journey. The poem helped make Alexander one of the most publically-known and respected poets writing today.
Following the form and purpose of Alexander, compose a praise poem.
This book, written by Barack Obama, former president of the United States, recognizes significant Americans and their contributions to America's history. He speaks on how he sees their traits in his daughters and in the rest of the children of America as well.
What is a trait of a noteworthy person that you feel you have within yourself.
Warning: racist language.
Historical context: The desegregation of the American school system and specifically The Little Rock Nine which was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas.
Write about an injustice you would like to see addressed from the point of view of the victim(s).
With imagery that evokes the bravery of African-Americans in the face of slavery and discrimination, You Too Can Fly by Zetta Elliot is a powerful reminder to find hope in the darkest of moments.
Zetta Elliot is a black, feminist writer who was born and raised in Canada, and now lives in the United States. You Too Can Fly is featured in the powerful anthology, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices.
Write a poem that will give others hope when they are frightened or about to give up.
DK Osei‐Yaw is an artist who romanticizes everyday life experiences and extrapolates their melodies into a multiplicity of art forms including poetry, theatre and music. He is a Ghanaian who uses his artistic self expression in a variety of ways to project everyday African life, especially taking inspiration from childhood influences of his upbringing and education in Ghana.
Write a poem about your favourite sport!
The critic Donald B. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice Hall, 1973) that Hughes “differed from most of his predecessors among black poets… in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read... Until the time of his death, he spread his message humorously—though always seriously—to audiences throughout the country, having read his poetry to more people (possibly) than any other American poet.”
Write a response to this poem that includes a central metaphor.
Pauli Murray was a civil rights activist, a pioneering feminist, a labor organizer, a lawyer, an Episcopal priest, and a writer of nonfiction, memoir, and poetry. Born Anna Pauline Murray in Baltimore, she was raised by aunts and maternal grandparents. Her grandmother was born into slavery, the product of rape between her enslaved mother and her owner. Murray’s mother died when Murray was just three years old; her father, committed to an asylum “for the Negro insane” for his symptoms of long-term typhoid fever, also died during Murray’s childhood, beaten to death by a guard.
Write about yourself, your values, your future.
Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats was the first time she saw herself in a children’s book. It was a defining moment in her life, and has made her into the artist she is today. As an illustrator, Vanessa includes children of all ethnic backgrounds in her stories and artwork. She wants all children to see their unique experiences reflected in the books they read, so they can feel the same sense of empowerment and recognition she experienced as a young reader. The children she draws can be seen dancing, wiggling, and moving freely across the page in an expression of happiness. Music is a constant celebration, no matter the occasion, and Vanessa hopes her illustrations bring joy to others, with the same magic of a beautiful melody.
Can you write about things that scare you and how you will overcome this fear? Can you draw a picture of you taming scary things?
One of the most widely-published and highly-acclaimed African American writers of her generation, poet, playwright and essayist June Jordan was known for her fierce commitment to human rights and political activism. Over a career that produced twenty-seven volumes of poems, essays, libretti, and work for children, Jordan engaged the fundamental struggles of her era: for civil rights, women’s rights, and sexual freedom. A prolific writer across genres, Jordan’s poetry is known for its immediacy and accessibility as well as its interest in identity and the representation of personal, lived experience—her poetry is often deeply autobiographical. Jordan’s work also frequently imagines a radical, globalized notion of solidarity amongst the world’s marginalized and oppressed.
Write about the things you construct/restrict regarding your appearance and behaviour so that you can fit into your world.
During the early 1990s, Angelou wrote several books for children, including Life Doesn’t Frighten Me (1993), which also featured the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat; My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me (1994), and Kofi and His Magic (1996), both collaborations with the photographer Margaret Courtney-Clark. Angelou’s poetry collections include The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994) and Phenomenal Woman (1995), a collection of four poems that takes its title from a poem which originally appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1978. The poem’s narrator describes the physical and spiritual characteristics and qualities that make her attractive. Angelou also wrote occasional poems, including A Brave Startling Truth (1995), which commemorated the founding of the United Nations, and Amazing Peace (2005), a poem written for the White House Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
Write a poem about something you deem phenomenal - a thing, a person, yourself?
An accomplished poet, playwright, and writer, Jabari Asim has been described as one of the most influential African American literary critics of his generation. Asim has served as the editor-in-chief of Crisis magazine—the NAACP’s flagship journal of politics, culture, and ideas— and as an editor at The Washington Post, where he wrote a syndicated column on politics, popular culture, and social issues. His writing has appeared in Essence, The Baffler, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The New Republic, American Prospect, Yale Review, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts and is the author of seven books for adults—including We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival —and eleven books for children. His debut book of poems, Stop and Frisk, was published in 2020. His latest books for young readers’, Mighty Justice and My Baby Loves Valentine’s Day, will be released on December 15, 2020. Asim is currently an Elma Lewis Distinguished Fellow and Associate Professor at Emerson College. He is both the Graduate Program Director of the MFA Program in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing, and the Program Director for the James Baldwin Writers Colony.
Write a poem about what you want to do in your life.
“Sterling A. Brown was born and raised in the strictly segregated Washington, D.C., of the first decades of the century. His family was middle class (his father was a professor of religion), and he was educated at Williams College and Harvard. There he read the new American poetry of early modernism and was struck especially by the use of the vernacular in Frost, Sandburg, and others. To this he would add knowledge of black folk traditions sought out in the southern countryside during several college teaching jobs in the 1920s. The result was the stunning debut volume, Southern Road (1932), which in many ways revolutionized African American poetry through the rest of the century. The critical issue was Brown's use of black dialect in his poetry. Criticized by James Weldon Johnson and others because of its long association with plantation life and minstrel shows, black dialect was faulted for reinforcing stereotypes, substituting pathos for dignity, and even promoting belief in black ignorance. But Brown's poetry overturned all these assumptions. His revolutionary use of dialect went much further even than crediting the vitality of independent folk traditions. Dialect in Brown becomes an extraordinarily compressed register for an ironic sense of cultural difference, for pride in an alternative knowledge amidst racial oppression. Dialect registers class and race awareness, along with a basic understanding of power relations in America, in a witty form that goes unnoticed by the ruling classes. It is a special form at once of wit and wisdom.
Because Brown's first book of poems appeared at the outset of the Great Depression, it missed the widespread attention it might have attracted but a few years earlier. Brown returned to Harvard for graduate study and produced two groundbreaking critical studies of African American literature in the 1930s. His major anthology, The Negro Caravan, appeared in 1941, but his Collected Poems was not published until 1980.” - From Modern American Poetry