Community-Word Project (CWP) believes that every child has a unique voice and we train and place teaching arts in the most under-served schools to help find those voices and bring them out. This year, CWP is working with over 1,300 New York City public school students in fourteen partner schools and seven branches of the New York Public Library and Queens Public Library.
Sarah-Kay Lemuel is one of student participating in Community-Word Project’s public school programs at the recently established Bronx Envision Academy in the South Bronx. As Sarah-Kay’s teaching-artist, Tecoyia Scott Littleton said, “Behind her shy demeanor lies a bold and captivating young artists who longs for her true home.”
This ninth-grader’s writing illustrates the vital importance of arts education programs. Evoking sadness loss and yearning, Sarah-Kay’s poem bears witness to what it is like for a young girl to be uprooted:
Jamaica, My Home…
By Sarah-Kay Lemuel
I remember leaving Jamaica, my only real home
The day was sunny and hot, I was 6 or 7.
My grandmother woke me, she smelled sweet,
Like the roses in her lush garden out front.
Even in the early morning, it was still so humid,
I remember the taste of my mother’s tears.
They tasted bitter, so very sad.
She wrapped her arms around my tiny frame.
Hugging me tightly…
You can read the rest of her powerful reflections in The New York Times SchoolBook, which she performed at Community-Word Project’s April 2nd Benefit and at a Poem in your Pocket Day open mic event in Bryant Park celebrating National Poetry Month.