With sparkle and humor, he sings a line of doggerel, giving it a whimsical twang at the end. Then he gazes expectantly at the students. Their task is to finish, in rhyme, the line he's given.
"The wind blows up, the wind blows down ..." he begins.
 Poet Emmanuel Williams provides some encouragement to Half Moon Bay High School student and budding poet Megan Correa. |
Williams smiles and continues, "The wind blows north, the wind blows south..."
The students are ready. You can almost hear their brains clicking.
"The wind blows everything in my mouth," another girl calls out.
Appreciative chuckles greet her effort, and Williams smiles broadly. "The wind blows births, the wind blows graves..."
"The wind blows turtles out of their caves," a third girl shouts out.
Williams laughs.
"Very good," he says in a clipped English accent. "One of the best yet."
Such lively rapport has filled Half Moon Bay High classrooms for four classes a day, two days a week for six weeks now.
The program is organized by teacher Claudia Lunstroth and funded by the school's PTA. As a result, Williams, 69, a Pacifica resident, former teacher and published poet, is conducting a 10-week poetry residency for 10th-graders.
Born in London, with a 40-year teaching career in Europe and the Bay Area and published poetry behind him, the white-haired and craggy-faced Williams embodies a poet and shaper of minds. He often wears dark clothing, Allen Ginsberg-style. But his British formality gives way to warmth and a decidedly bohemian outlook.
"The creative, imaginative, holistic side of wonder of your brain is starved," he said. "My job is to try to redress - or at least partly redress - that imbalance."
This is the third time he's held a residency at Half Moon Bay High. His 2007 visit coincides with National Poetry Month, and the Half Moon Bay Library displayed student poetry throughout April.
But Williams isn't interested in accolades. "I get (students) writing," he said. "That to me is the focus."
His classes begin with warm-ups like the Wind Song, "gibberish interpretation" in which two students "speak" in gibberish and a third responds to their tone of voice to lead a conversation, or choosing pairs of students to converse only in questions. The exercises, fun but stimulating, lead them into poetry.
"They're bored out of their freaking skulls, sitting in rows for 10 years or so," growled Williams. "I try to liven them up a little."
He might read his own poetry or that of contemporary poets including Ginsberg, D.H. Lawrence, Gary Soto or Elizabeth Bishop to pique creative juices. "I'm kind of a Pied Piper," he said. "Then they write."
Recently, Williams set two scenarios around which students could build poems. One was a journey, and he tacked up lists of creatures like serpent, phoenix, dolphin or deer, methods of transformation like dream, falling down a hole, death or a spell, and places like a valley, waterfall, trapdoor or castle.
The other theme was a list of things people tell you to do or not to do, and he started by reading a peppery poem by Jamaica Kincaid in which is woven the sparring voices of a teen and parent striving to derail her from "the slut you are so bent on becoming."
"Where do you come up with these things?" one boy asked.
"Basically, natural brilliance," deadpanned Williams.
After several moments of studious silence broken only by scratching, scribbling pens, Williams wandered up and down, offering positive comments.
"Oh, this is great ... Great images, young lady ... Are you pleased with that? ... l'll not read that aloud but I like that one," he murmured as he peered over shoulders to poems offered up to him. Sometimes, he grunts appreciatively. "Wow. Wow."
"I like kids, and I think they feel that," he said.
"I have kind of a passion for poetry, and I think it's cool that there's a professional poet to teach us," said student Zoe Galle.
She praised the first-period, early-morning poetry class, made up of advanced-placement students in a room decorated with posters of classic books, quotes from Emerson to Muhammad Ali and "11 Rules of Life from Bill Gates." "It's a growing experience and a good way to be expressive," she said.
Her classmate Emily Erickson agreed. "I've never been good at poetry, so this is helping me," she said. "Poetry is good at getting emotions out in expressive ways."
Williams warmed up a livelier, after-lunch class by asking them to think up poetical similarities. A donut was "like a magnified Cheerio," a cemetery was a "party for dead people" and a skull was "a cage for a brain."
Initially, some students were resistant to poetry, Williams said, but over the weeks "most of the response has been enthusiastic."
He attributes kids' willingness to embrace poetry as ripple effect from rap music - "I don't like it, but it has brought back respect for words" - and from the advent of the Internet, which "has given a lot of people a chamber for their voice, a place where they could speak."
He feels he - and poetry - are filling a void. "There's very little access for them to express feelings on a high school campus," he said. "I'm doing what I'm doing because I think it's good for them. Some of their stuff is pretty raw."
These are unstable times for kids to grow up, he said. "They face two big areas of darkness. They're growing up in 'pornotopia' - a hyper-sexualized society - and they face a great possibility we won't be here much longer."
What can poetry do against that?
"I didn't know much about poetry, didn't appreciate it at all," said student David Edwards, "but now I have more clues why people write poetry. There's so much more to it than rhyme.
"It's really fun," he said. "You get to do creative things. Like the gibberish - it helps develop your minds so you think quickly."
"I'm seeing growth in self-confidence," said Williams. "They're more confident in themselves because they're taking risks and working it out."
And the poetry "just gets better. Across the board."
•
Student Poetry
"Journey of a Gotama"
"Wrapped in silk robes,
sitting on a woven mat on the
bamboo floor of his father's house.
The face calm, eyes unseeing, breathing
the Om that washes over the waters.
The soul is not at peace ...
From death and despair a river
and a wood. Where else to go?
Meets an old face, with wrinkles of gold
lives the river, and listens, listens, listens.
Eternity and eternity lost, and eternity now
are in the river.
He found it, where do I look?"
-Chris Allen, May 3, 2007
"Things people have told me to do"
"... Stop wasting our money
Set up a match for the weekend
Practice or you'll never get good enough for a scholarship
Go hit tennis balls with your father, and afterwards
Clean up your room already
Try not to mess your room up after one day
Listen to me
Don't talk back
Don't be smart with me, Kathleen June
Go to your room
And while you're there, maybe clean it for once."
-K.J. Murakami, May 3, 2007
"The Journey"
"A scorpion went on a journey
he packed his bag of luck
and he left the desert sun
on his way to the North Pole
he passed through villages and towns
on his way to the pole
where he saw people walking around
stepping this way and that
not safe for a scorpion he thought
so he went to a park
in the middle of town
and he climbed a tree
where he saw a creature
that said 'hey you look just like me!'
so the scorpion climbed that tree
looking to meet a new friend ..."
-Monica Tolar, May 3, 2007
"Life's Lessons"
... "clean your room
take out the trash
Don't watch too much TV
read
use sunblock, wear a hat
stop talking to that boy
Stay away from her
be independent
respect the environment
don't be religious, it always causes too many troubles
respect everyone
don't use credit
but California real estate
if you got it flaunt it, but don't show too much
be your own boss."
- Sophia Whiting, May 3, 2007
w