Student Work

From a SpeakTogether virtual workshop, University Heights High School, The Bronx, Fall 2020

This poem was composed during a six-week workshop conducted by poet Jubi Arriola-Headley, who introduced a class of 9th-grade students to myriad forms of poetry that exist. This workshop took place virtually during a global pandemic. Read more about the works in this collection, which demonstrates students’ efforts to find their voices and share them with their peers, teachers, and families.

If dreams were relate

by Tori

Dreams where the world is perfect
But where we stand our dreams are hurled
The cards we hold have no effect
Unless we can change the world.

If we can change the world
We would end suffering,
Bring the world to peace.
Everyone should help each other out,
Instead of fighting shouts.

If we can change the world
We would make the world see all
The beauty around us even in the smallest things
And turn all hate into love and respect.

If we can change the world
Everyone should be treated equally
It doesn’t matter your religion or the color of your skin or even sexuality.

If we can change the world
The environment we live in right now would be better.
What’s happening now would not be
Going on as if we cured the world a while ago.

Tori, Laurencia, and Martha are all students from University Heights High School who as a team had to make a poem together. At that time it was a hard task, to work with someone you never met and who had different ideas of a perfect world. But we soon realized that a perfect world is not one person’s idea but everyone in harmony.