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Authors: Nikki Grimes
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my heart.
I’ve got two more years of school to go. Two more years to hold on to my dream, and two more years of Open Mike Fridays. Well, one year and a couple of months—this year’s going by so fast. I hope I’ll still have a chance to do Open Mike next year. They’re so popular now, every kid in school wishes they were in Mr. Ward’s class. I can’t blame them. We got a good thing going here, and people need to know about it. We’re sick of the negative press teenagers get all the time. Apparently somebody at The Bronx Insider agreed. Mr. Ward said they’re sending a reporter to cover our next Open Mike Friday, and it should be a monster. Mr. Ward invited a real poet to come speak to us and to read some of his work. It’s not an assembly exactly, but Mr. Ward is having us meet together in the multipurpose room for the special presentation. Pedro Pietri is the poet’s name. He’s in this book called The United States of Poetry and some body said he’s a reverend. Sterling must be stoked! Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing him. Poetry is the coolest thing we got going on in this school now. Maybe I’ll still be around next year to enjoy it.
Whether I finish up school here, or in Yorktown Heights depends on my folks. Either way, there’s a set designer’s job on Broadway with my name on it, and I’m not giving it up for anybody.
OPEN MIKE
Doubtless
BY STEVE ERICSON
When I was seven,
I looked to heaven
and dreamed
of going to the moon
but pretty soon
somebody came along
to change
my tune.
They put me down.
Bang! There my dream lay
on the ground.
Thank God, eventually
I came around
and dreamed
another dream.
At first, it seemed
a good idea to hide it,
confide it
to absolutely no one.
But that was no fun,
besides, I realized
I couldn’t. The joy it gave me
just wouldn’t
be stopped up. It popped up
at the most
inconvenient times,
effervesced
in all my rhymes.
But, hey! Joy
is not a crime, though
some people
make it seem so.
Does anybody here know
what I mean?
You share your dream
and right away
people laugh,
try to dissuade you,
do what they can to
plant a seed of doubt.
Listen: you’ve got to
root it out,
laugh last, push past,
pursue. Be you—
whoever that is—
dream intact.
And don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
And if you move,
remember: Pack your dreams.
They’re portable.
Tyrone
Either that boy’s been hanging out with some brothas, or he wish he had. He must’ve grown up round here, the way he talks. But I hope he ain’t studying on hanging out with me. We can peacefully coexist, but I don’t have no white boys in my crew.
He ain’t half bad, though. Pedro Pietri must’ve thought so too, the way he clapped when Steve was done. It was kinda cool having a published poet in the audience. First he read to us, then we read to him. He really listened to us too, like we were equals.
I bet Pietri’s partly why that reporter came out to our school. Not that the Insider is the Times or Daily News. But hey, it’s better than nothing. At least they’re interested in the good stuff going on in our neighborhood. Of course, I thought they would send in a brotha, but they sent this white guy. Ain’t no telling what kind of piece he’ll write about our stuff. Somebody should have told him it’s a long way from Shakespeare!
He talked to Rev. Pietri and Mr. Ward, mostly, but he took notes the whole time we were reading, and his photographer snapped a bunch of pictures. He definitely got one of me. He didn’t say which ones they’d be using, though. He got down everybody’s name, just in case, so he’d have them for the captions. Hope he spells my name right. Be just my luck, I get in the paper for something good and they misspell my name.
The paper comes out next week. See if I ain’t the first one at the newsstand.
Raynard Patterson
Finish what you start. That’s my mother’s favorite saying, and
I’ve got two more years of school to go. Two more years to hold on to my dream, and two more years of Open Mike Fridays. Well, one year and a couple of months—this year’s going by so fast. I hope I’ll still have a chance to do Open Mike next year. They’re so popular now, every kid in school wishes they were in Mr. Ward’s class. I can’t blame them. We got a good thing going here, and people need to know about it. We’re sick of the negative press teenagers get all the time. Apparently somebody at The Bronx Insider agreed. Mr. Ward said they’re sending a reporter to cover our next Open Mike Friday, and it should be a monster. Mr. Ward invited a real poet to come speak to us and to read some of his work. It’s not an assembly exactly, but Mr. Ward is having us meet together in the multipurpose room for the special presentation. Pedro Pietri is the poet’s name. He’s in this book called The United States of Poetry and some body said he’s a reverend. Sterling must be stoked! Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing him. Poetry is the coolest thing we got going on in this school now. Maybe I’ll still be around next year to enjoy it.
Whether I finish up school here, or in Yorktown Heights depends on my folks. Either way, there’s a set designer’s job on Broadway with my name on it, and I’m not giving it up for anybody.
OPEN MIKE
Doubtless
BY STEVE ERICSON
When I was seven,
I looked to heaven
and dreamed
of going to the moon
but pretty soon
somebody came along
to change
my tune.
They put me down.
Bang! There my dream lay
on the ground.
Thank God, eventually
I came around
and dreamed
another dream.
At first, it seemed
a good idea to hide it,
confide it
to absolutely no one.
But that was no fun,
besides, I realized
I couldn’t. The joy it gave me
just wouldn’t
be stopped up. It popped up
at the most
inconvenient times,
effervesced
in all my rhymes.
But, hey! Joy
is not a crime, though
some people
make it seem so.
Does anybody here know
what I mean?
You share your dream
and right away
people laugh,
try to dissuade you,
do what they can to
plant a seed of doubt.
Listen: you’ve got to
root it out,
laugh last, push past,
pursue. Be you—
whoever that is—
dream intact.
And don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
And if you move,
remember: Pack your dreams.
They’re portable.
Tyrone
Either that boy’s been hanging out with some brothas, or he wish he had. He must’ve grown up round here, the way he talks. But I hope he ain’t studying on hanging out with me. We can peacefully coexist, but I don’t have no white boys in my crew.
He ain’t half bad, though. Pedro Pietri must’ve thought so too, the way he clapped when Steve was done. It was kinda cool having a published poet in the audience. First he read to us, then we read to him. He really listened to us too, like we were equals.
I bet Pietri’s partly why that reporter came out to our school. Not that the Insider is the Times or Daily News. But hey, it’s better than nothing. At least they’re interested in the good stuff going on in our neighborhood. Of course, I thought they would send in a brotha, but they sent this white guy. Ain’t no telling what kind of piece he’ll write about our stuff. Somebody should have told him it’s a long way from Shakespeare!
He talked to Rev. Pietri and Mr. Ward, mostly, but he took notes the whole time we were reading, and his photographer snapped a bunch of pictures. He definitely got one of me. He didn’t say which ones they’d be using, though. He got down everybody’s name, just in case, so he’d have them for the captions. Hope he spells my name right. Be just my luck, I get in the paper for something good and they misspell my name.
The paper comes out next week. See if I ain’t the first one at the newsstand.
Raynard Patterson
Finish what you start. That’s my mother’s favorite saying, and
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