On November 19th, the PBS program "NewsHour" featured Native teens reading their poetry. The students attend school at Santa Fe Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. SFIS is a boarding school run by the All Indian Pueblo Council. A beautiful place, my parents met there in the 50s. My sister works there now, and, in the late 80s, I taught there and met my husband. Fondly, I remember our students walking our daughter, Liz, down the halls in 1992 when she learned to walk. One of my nephews is a student there now.
The students are in the Spoken Word Club. You can listen to the segment here. It is an audio file, that includes clips of the students reading their poems and interviews with the students.
You can watch the students reading their poems here. The students are preparing for the 2009 Brave New Voices Poetry Slam. You can listen to the news segment here. It is an audio file that includes clips of the students reading their poems and interviews with the students.
(Reminder: If you wish to enter a giveaway to receive a copy of Cynthia Leitich Smith's picture book, Jingle Dancer, send me an email with your mailing address. The drawing will be held on Nov 30th, 2008. Click here for details.)
Last night our local PBS affiliate ran an Independent Lens segment called "March Point", about 3 Native teens (Swinomish) who worked on a documentary about the effect of an oil refinery on their community's well-being (including their traditional food supply). The video is partly BY them, but also OF them, as they do things like talk with tribal leaders, and even go to Washington to talk to their congresspersons. It's not poetry, not literature, but I just wanted to tell people to watch for it, because it's worth seeing.
ReplyDeleteDebbie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for coming to my blog The LiteraBuss. I have actually met you before. I was in a class last spring at NMSU being taught by Judi Franzak, and we had a teleconference discussion with you during one of our class meetings. I'm actually a doctoral student at NMSU now, how exciting right? I'm glad you dropped by, I actually do read your blog, I just need to make a more conscious effort to post more comments (I'm really bad about that). GO NEW MEXICO!