by redclay | Sep 11, 2021 | Visual Arts
We were beyond excited when our partner Casa Chirilagua wanted to bring back “Fun Friday” with us! We had started Fun Fridays with them earlier this year, then had to cancel when that Friday time was needed for homework help after school re-opened. Starting Fun Friday was double good news – it was a chance for us to bring art and creativity to these cute kids, and they didn’t need as much homework assistance. High fives all the way around!
The setup was a new one for us: Three 30 minute classes for 13 kids in grades 1 – 5. Whew! That’s a lot of kids in a short amount of time! And of course we delivered! In fact, our art teacher Sharmila Karamchandani told us quite a few times how much she loved working with the kids – their innocence, their openness, their freedom of expression.
For the inaugural project Sharmila asked them to draw gratitude trees – who and what are you grateful for, and write that on your branches. And armed with colored pencils and plenty of paper, the kids drew us mommies and daddies, raspberries, owls, and friends. Here’s a few photos to make you say “aaaaawwwww.”
by redclay | Sep 3, 2021 | Detention Center Writing Contests, fiction, Poetry
by Jerrell Copeland
Poetry, Heard/Arlington County Detention Facility/OAR writing contest, August 2021
As the soul cries
within the eyes
that look through the windowpane
enslaved caged thoughts think freedom really bring better days.
To be the answer or not to be
the easy way distracts one from the question.
Helpless, time comes and tosses
those whom are doomed not to elude the catcher.
Free dumb taught by the Master
sale the Black
you know what comes after.
Father time fatherless to my kind oh what a disaster,
for he runs out not to teach the seconds that passes.
As the clock watches hour tic toc vanish
the minute we find happiness it’s banished.
Behind barbwire fences concrete cinder blocks steal bars
and doors that are locked where our loves eventually love another
brothers forget brothers and the hearts torn,
punish, crushed belong to our dear mothers.
This is Black reality
the dark life savagery
its cold in that hole where we go,
so sad to me.
Our pupils envision this is how it has to be.
23 and 1 hour or Sun do what’s right so you don’t have to live like this please.
I beg you to listen so that you may gain understanding and take heed,
a wiseman had a nightmare revealing a ghost dream.
There was a beast called the system
an vicious organism
that couldn’t exist without cells.
Have you heard of it?
It’s Jail.
Unmeasurable in size
it resides wherever there’s a mind,
even in front of our own eyes
we see it not trying to hide
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