Student Work

From a SpeakTogether virtual workshop, Talent Unlimited High School, Spring 2020

This poem was composed during a six-week session conducted by author and spoken word artist Sheri Booker, who worked with a class of 10th-grade students to develop their voices. This workshop took place during a global pandemic, a national lockdown, and uprisings across the country to end police brutality and structural racism. Read more about the works in this collection, which are artifacts of this period and a true testament to the vision, creativity, and resilience of these students.

Listen to a recording of the following poem above. 

Final Poem

by Anya Paul

Love is having faith
Souls alight, sun so high, no fear
Silencing any other sound
It engulfs your body like flames.

Look, a girl, named Sharon!
Once, a boy named Aaron
Bent a knee for that Sharon
Souls alight, sun so high, no fear as she said yes!

Loving is hoping
While hate coils like a snake
Both silencing any other sound
Another man held Aaron’s Sharon now
And now hatred rots Aaron’s soul.

Love is trust in one another
She was fun, that Sharon!
Chilling air, white ground
It is trust in one another
But she would no longer be at his bedside.

Anya Paul was a sophomore at Talented Unlimited High School in NYC at the time of this recording.