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Once monthly, the New York City Writing Project celebrates the teacher-as-writer by publishing works of poetry and prose written by its teachers. If you are interested in submitting your work to NYCWP Voices, please read the submissions guidelines and submit your work by email to voices@nycwritingproject.org.
Note: These two poems were written during the NYCWP’s writing marathon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Creativity Now. The works of art that inspired the writing are included for reference.
Apartment Houses, (oil painting with sand and charcoal-“art brut”)
by Jean Dubuffet
I am square in a square window.
I am grey in a square window.
I am round in a square grey window.
I stand in a tall white window.
I look out from a balcony window.
I look out of a square grey window.
I wait in a square white window.
Stores below: a cafe-bar, a shoe store, a shop for clothing.
Parts of the buildings are brown.
Parts of the street are brown.
Two people, outside,
Talk to one another.
Le Pont de Passy et la Tour Eiffel, 1911, by Marc Chagall (The Bridge of Passy and the Eiffel Tower)
I am a blue horse
standing near the red Tour Eiffel.
Brick lines the walk, makes a wall.
Where does the train go?
It passes the Pont.
I see blue water –
Or is that a line on the wall?
I see another horse –
Or is that just my reflection?
Mindy Levokove is a multimedia performance poet and teaching artist. She has taught a variety of art subjects (including quilt making workshops, finger puppets, poetry, shadow puppet theater workshops, movement) as well as adult literacy, adult numeracy, and health and family literacy. She’s composed music and performed in her own and others’ theater and dance pieces and is a regular choreographer- site coordinator with Water Dances, an international dance and education group that “dances for water”, in multiple sites, all around the world, every other year. Recently, she’s been published in The Literary Review East, with another poem coming out this month; and next month, 3 poems will appear in the 12th Annual Brevitas Celebration Anthology. She is a proud member.
