(upbeat instrumental music)
-: Hi, my name is Daemond Arrindell.
I am a poet and a teaching artist,
and thank you for being here with me.
We're gonna be doing some writing today.
And this is a little bit less of a lesson
and more of a writing activity.
We're gonna be writing a mad lib fear poem.
And I'll get into exactly what that looks like in a moment.
The big idea behind this is tapping into our imaginations
can help us see past our limitations.
I'll say that again, tapping into our imaginations
can help us see past our limitations.
So where we're going to start is by looking at our fears.
I want you to make a list of things
that scared you when you were younger.
And some of those things might still scare you.
So just take a couple minutes
to write down things that scared you
when you were a little kid.
And a lot of the students that I've worked with
often have the dark, or darkness on their list.
Clowns are a very common thing, spiders as well.
So certain insects, certain animals, places you've been.
Some things that are on my list, clowns,
earthquakes, family members getting hurt, dying,
getting old, the dark is on my list as well.
Failure, global warming, for me,
the police, sometimes our government.
These are some of the things that scared me as a little kid,
or well I should say when I was younger.
So, take a moment to write down
some things that are on your list.
What are some things that scared you
when you were a kid and may still scare you?
See if you can get to five, that would be awesome.
And I'm gonna move forward.
So I'd like to share with you a poem
that is all about our imagination,
and how our imaginations can take us
past what we thought we were capable of,
how our imaginations can help us
to become more than who and what we are.
This is a poem by a poet named Sekou Andrews.
Sekou Andrews is black man from Los Angeles.
And I really love this poem.
And I'm just gonna read it out loud to you.
This is called Be for a living.
You asked me now, mommy,
you asked me now what I wanna do for a living?
Well, I think I finally figured it out.
I don't wanna do for a living,
I wanna be for a living, I wanna be life.
I wanna make things grow and move,
and breathe and reproduce and respond.
I wanna make things respond and react,
and rejoice and relax and relate,
and release and receive as soon as I recite when I grow up.
I don't wanna be like them other kids, mommy.
I don't wanna be doctors and ballers and astronauts,
I wanna be passion and heat and energy when I grow up,
not the fireman, mommy, let me be the fire.
The explosion behind the souls big bang theory
that leaves in its place desire,
the burning within that gives life to the word aspire.
Let me light the paths of those wandering in darkness.
And when the artists of the world have become
so infatuated with ice that the whole world freezes over,
let me be the poet that melts the ice caps,
drowns the planet and starts this whole
thing over two poets at a time like Noah.
When I grow up I don't wanna be like the astronaut, mommy,
I wanna be the space that she explores.
Not the doctor mommy, let me be the cure,
the prescription for a better life.
I wanna be the pill of which you take two,
and to call this place the next morning.
I wanna be the white blood cell
that strengthens your immune system,
the clot that stops your bleeding,
the antidote that counters your poison.
I wanna speak antibiotic poetry
that defeats your life's viruses,
but only if you take my words in three times a day,
until the entire bottle is gone.
I don't wanna be the artists mommy, I wanna be the art.
I don't wanna be the painter mommy, I wanna be the canvas.
Not the choreographer mommy, let me be the dancers,
not the poet mommy, let me be the stanzas.
I don't wanna be the philosopher,
I wanna be the philosophy in those minds,
or rather the elusive concept that they can't
quite figure out, like purpose, faith and time.
Oh, let me be time, let me be times,
so that I will never again feel this depression
that I feel now from being abandoned by it.
Let me be time so that everyone will go to sleep tonight
feeling like they never got enough of me,
and will panic when they feel me slipping away.
Let me be time, so that I will never be before myself.
Never be against myself and never be too late,
never be too early, so for once in this life
of unfulfilled dreams that have left my cheeks
streamed with salt water erosion,
my mouth, perpetually coated
with the bitter aftertaste of disappointment.
For once I can be right on me.
When I grow up, I wanna be the answer to the void,
the antilogy to emptiness, the inverse of regression,
the reverse of absence, the illumination of shadows,
I wanna be the opposite of darkness.
Let me be the opposite of darkness.
So when the greatest poet in existence,
recites the first line of the greatest poem ever written,
let there be light,
then I can begin.
Thank you, so that was a poem by Sekou Andrews.
And what I love about it, is him wanting to be more.
He doesn't wanna be a job.
And one thing that I noticed that you,
young people constantly have to face from adults,
is what do you want to do when you grow up?
As opposed to what type of person
do you want to be when you grow up?
Sure, jobs are important, careers are important.
But I've known doctors who are complete jerks.
And I've known people who bagged groceries at Safeway
and are the kindest people in the world.
So what type of person do you wanna be?
Is a much more important question in my personal opinion.
And in this case,
he's talking about not wanting to be a job.
He doesn't wanna be an astronaut.
He wants to be the space that she explores.
Not the doctor, let me be the cure,
he wants to be more than just a person.
He wants to be an impact, he wants to make an impact,
he wants to make a difference.
I think it's one of the greatest
things in the world to want to be.
So, the next step in our writing
is to think of aspects of nature
that you find really interesting,
or that you really liked a lot.
What are some animals that you think are amazing?
What are some aspects of nature?
Trees, a forest, the wind, aspects of nature,
animals, insects, what are three things
that you think are interesting, or admire?
And what is it that you like about them?
For myself, my first pick would be the blue whale,
the largest creature that has ever lived on our planet.
One blue whale, is the same length of 10
full grown African elephants, they are huge.
The eye of a whale, a blue whale is about that.
And the heart of a blue whale,
it's about the size of a Prius,
small, compact car, that's huge.
And yet, they are some of the gentlest and most graceful
creatures that have ever swam in the ocean.
So I'm fascinated by blue whales.
I love those creatures.
What are some animals for whatever reason,
what are some animals or aspects
of nature that you think are interesting?
Maybe the rain, or thunder, or a whale, or a lion,
or a forest, or the wind, what are some aspects of nature.
So going back to our fears.
I mentioned in my list that earthquakes
were something that scared me when I was a little kid,
and I'll tell you a little story.
When I was 10 years old, I'm born and raised in New York.
And when I was 10 years old, New York had an earthquake,
and it wasn't big enough to do any damage,
but it was big enough to shake me,
and knock me out of my bed.
And it scared me to the point
that I started having nightmares.
And I needed a way to kind of get through it.
And I was told by an elder that one of the best ways
to get past a fear is to learn
everything you can about that thing.
So I was taught to research earthquakes,
I went to the library,
read everything that I could about earthquakes,
and that helped with the nightmares
that I had started to have,
but it didn't make them go away completely.
The next thing that I was told
was about living, lucid dreaming.
It's when you're aware that you're dreaming.
And so I was told by this elder,
when you're getting ready for bed,
say to yourself I will become the earthquake,
I will become the earthquake, I will become the earthquake,
which made no sense to me whatsoever, but I did it.
And the next time that I had the nightmare,
I can't explain it other than to say in the dream, I said,
I will become the earthquake, I will become the earthquake,
and then I literally dissolved into the ground.
And that was the last time that I had the nightmare.
So think if you could transform into something else,
an animal, a force of nature, when you had to face
one of your fears, what would you wanna become?
And I'll give you an example.
When I was little, I was scared of earthquakes.
When I saw the ground shaking my,
face looked like a cracked eggshell,
and my heart sounded like a steam engine
going through a long dark tunnel, but all that's changed.
Now when I get scared,
I'd become the earthquake rumbling beneath your feet.
When I become the earthquake, my heart will look like
an old school boombox with the bass bumping.
What I've got here is a structure
for the mad lib poem that we are gonna create together.
The idea here, is facing one of those fears on your list.
And if you had to do that,
what would you want to transform into,
so that you would no longer be scared.
So we're gonna use this template.
When I was little, I was scared of, blank.
When I saw the, blank, my face looked like, blank,
and my heart sounded like, blank.
But now when I get scared, I become the, blank.
When I become the, blank, my heart will look like, blank.
And I'm gonna show this worksheet for you all
to follow along and write your own responses.
I encourage you to write the whole thing.
So that it's easier to follow along,
rather than just writing the responses.
But the idea here is to really use your imaginations,
just like Sekou Andrews talked about in his poem,
to help you to move past your own limitations,
to help you to move past your fears.
And I think that's a really wonderful gift
that our imaginations give us.
So again, you're gonna use your fear,
and your fear on this worksheet does not have
to be the thing that you turn into.
In my case, I did become the earthquake.
But if you're scared of dogs,
maybe you transform into the rain,
or transform into the wind,
or maybe you transform into an elephant,
you get to decide if you are scared of the dark,
you don't have to transform into the dark,
you get to transform into whatever you would like.
The idea here is to use these fill in the blanks
to create your own version of this poem,
or you get to become more than what you are,
you get to imagine yourself as more than just a person.
You get to be whatever you decide.
So thank you for being with me.
Take about 10 minutes to write with this activity.
Dive on in, see what you come up with.
Thanks for being here with me.
(upbeat music)