April, National Poetry Month, is dedicated to the many beautiful and expressive poets from around the world. Created by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month was made to raise awareness of the importance of writing in our society. Many writers worth highlighting can be found on the Poly Prep campus, among staff and students. To get into the spirit,it’s time we recognize a few poets within Poly’s staff, including English teachers Julia Edwards and Paolo Javier, along with Upper School Dean Cherkira Lashley, who can share with us their identities as poets, and how they approach the artform.
Taking after her mother, Laura Caldwell, another beloved member of the English department, Edwards began writing poetry as a kid. She’s been a member of Poly for two years, teaching young minds the beauty of literature as an English teacher in the Upper School.
Why do you write poetry and what pushed you to write?
I think I started writing poetry pretty young. I mean, I think two of my influences were my mother, who also works here as a teacher, and she was a poet. I went to readings, and she really instilled a value for poetry in me. The other reason would be music, like lyrics. I love listening to music, now and as a kid. It really resonated with me, listening to the lyrics of songs. So I funneled that into poetry. I also went to the Sarah Lawrence school, which is a pretty writing-centric school. And I was lucky to have a really good mentor there.
What themes do you explore in your poetry?
The essential questions of life; love, death, relationships, the self…things like that. I like to use both humor and more solemn concepts.
How has your writing evolved?
When I was younger I would write things more off the cuff, that mostly responded to my everyday condition. Like if I was on the subway or doing whatever I was doing. Now, I think my work is a little more considerate and thoughtful. I try to think about it. I’ve begun to reflect more on my life, not that I didn’t reflect then, but I think I just have more of an experience to draw from so I try to kind of take the various parts of myself and the world and put them together rather than just responding to kind of like what’s immediately in front of me and then letting my associations take me wherever.
Any advice for aspiring poets?
I think you should be open to the world, be honest with yourself. Those are the main two things. Find a good mentor, someone who believes in you, like the way that you believe in yourself too. I think what’s so great about poetry and writing-that we don’t need anything to do it. You need to buy paints to paint or get recording equipment to make music. The other kinds of the arts require you to buy things, but for poetry, the tool is just you and the world
What poetry do you hold close to your heart?
There are so many poems, but the first thing that comes to mind is “What the Living Do” by Marie Howe. I think it’s one of the first poems that I loved. It’s from a collection that’s also called “What the Living Do” and it really draws from just a lot of personal experiences within her family. The poem itself has an almost spiritual quality, even though it’s not spiritual at all really.
When people talk about poetry, slam poetry does not come up as often as it should. Its expression is told not only through pen and paper but by one’s voice and body. Keeping this art alive is Ms. Lashley, the newest member of Poly’s Upper School deans, explaining her experience in this field of writing and performance.
Why do you write poetry and what pushed you to write?
Poetry, for me, actually started in church. When I was a kid, I wrote a mother’s day poem that our congregation responded positively to. The validation made me think writing was something I was good at. In high school, here at Poly actually, there was a chapel with a special guest who was a SLAM poet. His name was B Yung and he incited my interest in the intersection of poetry and hip-hop. That’s when I really got interested in spoken word.
How does spoken word poetry make you feel?
Spoken word makes me feel like I have a voice and a platform to share it. It makes me feel both intellectually and emotionally present and vulnerable. It makes me feel both cool and nerdy. Which is a balance I needed to avoid being pigeonholed into the identity of “jock” — which is the identity that dominated my social experience as a student at Poly.
What is poetry to you?
In college (at Wesleyan), it became a space for me to share my identity with my school. It also became a space for me to be somewhat of an activist, using my poetry as a tool to create dialogue around issues pertaining to various social injustices.
How has your experience as a poet changed and further impacted your life?
Spoken word has been a tool for me to build community and connect with young people. It has been essential to my efficacy as an educator and my ability to make connections with other creatives.
What is your favorite poem?
My favorite poem is “My Father’s Letters” by Yusef Komunyakaa. It is both simple and complex, literal and abstract. As a person who has had a fraught relationship with my own father, this poem speaks to emotions that I didn’t even have words for. My favorite part is the balance of pain and empathy that the speaker feels for their father.
Mr. Javier is another valued member of the English department whose passion for literature and dedication to learning pushes his students every day. Offering a more identity-based take on poetry, he discusses how he integrates his life as an immigrant from the Philippines who lived and grew around the culture of Queens.
Why do you write poetry and what pushed you to write?
I started writing poetry in middle school, actually, but the first poem I wrote was in the fourth grade. I think I was inspired to write poetry because I fell in love with hip-hop and rap. Listening to Run -DMC’s “Raising Hell”- that was a really formative album for me. I first heard them when I was in the Philippines. My family moved here when I was 12. And I live in Queens now. I didn’t really know that you could actually inhabit language that way, and also be playful and have something to say about the world around you.
What themes do you explore in your poetry?
The poetry that I’m writing today…I don’t know. It changes. I’m pretty restless. I’m someone who’s lived all over the world, very lucky to have experienced that. And so I feel like an outsider. I feel like an outsider anywhere I go. That gives me an advantage to not feel like I just have to do one thing. I think I’m interested a lot in my subjectivity. I’m an immigrant, so how my language behaves in my poems will always somehow reflect how my mind moves through different languages. I’m also really concerned with, I guess, being a person of color in this moment. Right now I’m interested in dreams, writing dream poems, which then automatically makes me think about movies because movies are the closest to a dream in an art form.
How has your writing evolved?
I think I’m a much more knowledgeable poet in 2024. I know more about poetry, the traditions, not just here in the West, but in Asia and the Philippines globally. I’m more aware and understanding of it. I don’t think I was as aware before. You know, I was experimental. I think my poetry is not becoming more simple, but I’m experimenting a lot with more simple vocabulary. But it’s also evolving to include electronics. I have an SP-404 sampler. And so when I write, I’m tinkering with loops and making loops and making beats.
What poetry do you hold close to your heart?
I can just start with what I was reading last night, which was what I had at my desk. Arthur Rimbaud is a poet who I’ve just been returning to. He’s a French poet. You can look him up. He really anticipated the library of poetry that I care about today. He was queer, addressing the feminist themes and very open about his identities, how plural he was early on. He knew tradition but he also challenged it and he experimented with prose, which you see a lot of poets doing now, and I’m finding, you know, I’m experimenting with myself.
Any advice for aspiring poets?
I would say really just read as much about poetry and all poets who you can get your hands on at this stage, you know, here at Poly. The New Yorker is an interesting magazine to get one sense of how poetry should be, but it’s by no means a yardstick. Just read as much, read widely, whatever you hear about another poet from a poet, follow that rabbit hole. Ask your teachers. We’re some poets, you know. If they see you’re writing poetry, they can guide you to a poet that you might learn from based on the poetry that you’re working on. Read more than write.
Remember to support and recognize your fellow writers the next time you see them.
Happy National Poetry Month!
