Since getting back from California, I’ve started working on teaching the poetry half of a poetry/art workshop for teens at the Franklin Avenue library. The kids there are mostly immigrant kids from different parts of Africa, though there are kids who aren’t first generation immigrants, kids from Arabic-speaking countries, and at least one Native girl. It’s a challenge, but also incredibly rewarding- mostly, kids are kids- there are some pronunciation things as most of them started with a different language, and some cultural things like they don’t necessarily know the mostly European fairytales and nursery rhymes my kid-friendly poems refer to.

I’ve also had one performance with Marc’s bands, and have another one coming up next week. I really had a blast performing at the Bedlam with his math band and his retro futurist steam rock band (woo! favorite new band), and was a little amazed how complete and rapt the attention of the audience was during my spoken word set, how *into* it they seemed to be.

Between the workshop and playing with Marc’s bands, it has become apparent to me that I should be writing more kid-friendly (not that my poems are full of swearing, they’re just not necessarily poems younger folks would be *interested* in) and more science poems. Not-so-secret confession, after I have the money to actually publish Army of Nursery Rhymes, I really would like to start working on a chapbook of science-poems.

So, Inky! Get at it!