The Community Poetry Activity was a co-created poem event that took place at the WCGMF 25th Anniversary launch event and at each of the regional community events in the summer and fall of 2018. Focusing in on the topic of equity in education that is at the root of the WCGMF’s mission, participants started with the prompt “Equity in Education Looks Like, Feels Like, Tastes Like, Sounds Like…” and let their personal experiences and inspiration take them from there.

All together 101 completed lines of poetry were written by people from across CT. For some of the celebrations, local poets from The Word such as Puma Simone, Dymin Ellis, and Salwa Abdussabur assisted with this activity. At other events, artist Constanza Segovia of Veo Veo Designs collaborated to create live drawings inspired by the community’s words and statements.

For the StoryScape final exhibit event at ConnCAT, poet Precious Chika Musa took on the creative endeavor of crafting a poem and piece of art using the 101 lines of community poetry as a starting point. What resulted is the powerful poem, When the Morning Comes printed below.

Community Poetry Writing
25th Anniversary Celebrations
Community members visioning a world where equity in education exists, and using poetry to share what that world looks like, feels like, tastes like, smells like, sounds like….

Live Drawings
Created by Constanza Segovia
Inspired by the lines of poetry written by community members

Collage
Created by Precious Chika Musa
Incorporating many of the cards with community poetry lines into a piece of art

Poem Reading
Precious Chika Musa
At the StoryScape exhibit at ConnCAT

When the Morning Comes
Poem by Precious Chika Musa
Inspired by 101 lines of community poetry from the WCGMF’s 25th Anniversary Celebrations

And so we begin
where we often do—
at the root of a desire
so deep it births a new
world: equity in education

looks like sunrise, tastes like
moonlight, feels like freedom.
what we are describing
is the heaven earth has
yet to realize.

It’s like when we were kids
and always drew the sun
in the upper left-hand corner
of the paper—we always knew
there was something bright above
us, just not the courage
to imagine how big. Picture

fresh water, full bellies,
no police, a world where
white supremacy shrivels
in its poison. Safety.
The rain drizzles us
clean, buries us in bliss—

Can you feel it?
Are you finally home
in your skin? See
the burning timbers
of the school the kids
dismantled and set ablaze; come
closer. Look how they run
towards themselves ready
for flight—go with them.

Let the thunder thunder you,
let bones know we survive
by being loud
and quiet. By listening.
By laughing, by playing
by telling stories, by
learning how to child again.
By alchemizing a learning experience
so profound we remember
we live in bodies

and they belong to us.
Bring us our history:

sit us in that Birmingham jail
then save seats
at the first theater premiere
of for colored girls.
take us to la frontera,
teach us how to cross borders.
Marsha P. Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie
Sylvia Rivera, show us
how to run a rebellion.
Forget Disney’s Pocahontas.
We want to know the Nations
that first learned not to trust
whiteness. We’re saying
blast the world open,

sprinkle magic, then begin
again. Celebrate families
as the first teachers, rub lavender
down a book’s spine, heal
its chakras and yours. Change
the student body, gather
faculty who look like them—
do you hear it now?
The joyful noise
of soul work. Bare soles

pounding dirt, feet congregating
in our unique melodies.
We’ll exist in the utopic-
tinted rhythm of the thing.
What we are doing
is reaching into the darkest
corner of our soul selves
and breathing light.
What we are creating
is a childhood so big
it swallows whole any adult
who dares utter the word
‘can’t,’ who dares to judge
who can and cannot succeed.
And anyway,
English is too thin lipped
to hold empowerment:

Equidad en la educación
para todos es arroz con
habichuelas para el almuerzo
de la escuela, y no importa
la lengua que hables
ni el color.
Equidad es la paz.
Es la verdad.
No es barreras.
Es evolución, revolución.

What we are doing
cannot be glorified.
There is no glory in pain.
There is no glory
in young people dying.
Let’s not forget
how we got here.
Let’s not forget
who will lead us out,
who this work will fall on.
Equity in education—
a never-ending struggle
with water breaks.

Tell me, who died for
the last dream? Who
killed them? Whose shoulders
do we rise on, thrive on?
We be a “layin’ on of hands,”
a wish. We be the hope
that tastes like homemade cinnamon
rolls, sweet red wine, ancestral
recipes. Hope tastes however tender
the water after a day’s work
in the time before white
people grew curious.
It tastes however loud
the spice in the meal after
justice is served.

Click Here to Download Hi-Resolution Image of Poem
Click Here to Download Hi-Resolution Images of Drawings
Click Here to Download Hi-Resolution Images of (final event)