West Coast Jewish Youth Recite the Poetry Within Them

By Eileen Wingard

Eileen Wingard

LA JOLLA, California — Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices featured the poetry of young writers from San Diego, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon, last month.  The Internet audience for the Lawrence Family JCC sponsored event consisted of poetry lovers young and old from the entire West Coast.

Portland Jewish Academy’s 6th and 7th Grade Humanities teacher, Harriet Wingard,  who is my daughter, mused, “So, why was this year’s student reading different from all others? Thanks to a very close connection between a PJA teacher and an organizer of the event, we received an invitation to participate.  And thanks to Zoom, physical distance could not keep these young poets from connecting, celebrating, and overcoming a few jitters to read their original poems in the company of 75 eager listeners.”

Seven student poets from San Diego came from several Day Schools and Religious Schools. They included Milo and Aviva Wolpoff and Eliana Rose, representing Ohr Shalom’s Religious School, led by principal Cheryl Katz.  Zach Tiep represented both Temple Solel’s Religious School and the San Diego Jewish Academy’s Middle School. He accepted an invitation from both Ellen Fox, Temple Solel’s principal, and Sara Hansen,  SDJA Chair of Humanities, Grades 6-12. Hansen also recruited Jonah Swartzberg and Julia Nieberg from the SDJA Middle School, and Adam Glasser from the SDJA High School. These students clearly made their teachers proud, including SDJA Middle School English Teacher, Stacy Goldblatt, and SDJA High School English Teacher, Linda Rosenberg.

Georgia Turman, the featured poet of the evening, Zoomed in from Los Angeles. She is currently a high school junior at the New West Charter School. Her grandfather, Dr. Leonard Bernstein, resides in San Diego, and her mother, Sheri Bernstein, who is the current Vice President for Education and Visitors at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles, grew up in San Diego.

An additional seven student poets from the Portland Jewish Academy participated. The PJA students were Anna Kappler, Nico Chapin, Lulu Way, Gautam Josse, Hannah Millkey, Judah Barnett, and Sunaina Arora.

Following is a sample of the insightful, original poems read that evening, which attest to the creativity and sensitivity of our youth. They are a tribute to the educators who inspire young writers to cultivate and share their voices.

HAIR by Georgia Turman

When I went outside, I was able to
Throw my loose strands of hair into the wind,
Bury them in the ground, leave them on a fence,
Abandon them in an empty room,
They would be gone

But the longer I stay in this house
The less I can escape the strands
That pile up on my desk,
In my bed, on the floor,

I spend all morning putting hair into a garbage can,
But I cannot escape myself!
By noon there is hair in the sink, on the mirror,
Between couch pillows,
And it is climbing back out of the garbage can

I wish I could make it stop coming loose
But it is so eager to leave
To float three feet away
And taunt me from there

I get scared that maybe I am growing old very quickly
And becoming bald
Or that something has possessed my follicles
But unfortunately, it is all very average
A problem too mundane for conversation
But it disturbs me to watch piles of hair fill my house, —
I can’t even close the doors anymore —
And it just keeps growing out of my head…

Currently, I cannot dilute myself into a mixture of world
I cannot let go of hair without it returning to me
Hair can be created, but not destroyed
Until now, I didn’t realize how much it belonged to me
I am forced to notice my self as it manifests and thickens in its room

–Hair has jammed up the windows!–
It gets very hot
And it is hard not to feel self-centered
When I am literally at the center of
Thousands of strands of my own hair
Orbiting around me like stars,
Storms, scars, fingers, critics,
Veils, tiny little streams of silent noise

And not a single gust of wind
To clear the air

*

WE WEAR THE MASK  by Eliana Rose

We wear the mask that laughs and smiles,
It suffocates us, but all in style.
We’re all made to wear them,
If we even take a step outside of our house.
And then we must stay 6 feet away,
From anyone who is not our brother, sister or spouse.

We’ve been cooped up too long,
Our skin crawling to get out.
But we are not heard,
Even when we protest and shout.

The world is a mess,
More than before.
But no one knows what to do,
No, not anymore.

This will have to get better,
At one point or another.
But for now we’re all crying,
As we hold onto and pray with one another.

*

MY FAMILY IS AN EVER RUNNING MOTORCAR by Adam Glasser

My father is the fuel in the tank causing a chemical reaction
Which combusts into greatness, powering everyone
every step of the way.

My Mother is the roaring souped up metallic engine
Blowing past everyone in the blink of an eye,
Revving us up to make it big.

My Brother is the body of the car, the main look of the car
With so many hidden functional details, breaking past
every barrier like the speed of sound.

My Sister is the shiny top brand wheels and rims gripping the
floor with more than just passion, but with true heart that
no other company has the chance to accomplish.

My Dog is the beautifully lush leather interior, that gives
the racing driver a comfortable yet more ferocious
sportier feeling like no other.

And I am the mechanic lacing every part of these qualities together
pouring the fuel that powers it all,
applying thermal coolant that cools the engine,
designing the body to be fast yet durable,
bolting up the wheels to stay up strong,
stitching together fabrics, leather, and cushioning, for the interior.
While screwing everything together to be perfectly and symmetrically balanced,
to effectuate love, logic, passion, power, and a humble agenda
distinctive from all others in order to draw
ahead by uncountable miles.

*

THE SNAKE IS A MAGNIFICENT CREATURE  by Zach Tiep

The snake is a magnificent creature
Scaly yet silky smooth
Twisting through the trees\
Across the ground
And swimming through the water

Colors are vibrant and dull
They come in many sizes
And their eyes never close
They also have a weird nose
Two holes on the side of their head

It’s wrong that some people want them dead
The snake is a magnificent creature

*

NOSTALGIA  by Judah Barnett

Remember how we would always go to Chicago?
Oh, how I wish we could be there.
No parents — just cousins and grandparents.
The late nights watching movies, and the mornings of your choice.
Silver-dollar pancakes, Zayde eggs, cereal, or whatever else we buy at the store.

Remember the trips to Navy Pier, riding the Ferris wheel into the clouds?
Or the trips to museums?
Oh, the art and the history we saw.

Remember our life in Corvallis?
Half of the time, I was at my best friend’s house.
And the summers, going to the library?
Or the trips to the river, swinging over the cold, icy water?

Oh, how I wish I could go back.

*

RANT  by Nico Chapin

How many people have prepared for a paranoid existence perched precariously on death and uncertainty. How many people have gathered with their collected comforts. Coalesced in isolated ignorance, cast off, from the preachers of the precious few. We pretend to rewrite history, pretend that we are always right. We ignore the shadow around us, ignore the suffering of thousands. An illusory opinion that we are diverse, and inclusive. Yet we know, know that Fear is bred from Ignorance, Hatred is bred from fear. And violence is bred from hatred. In short, we fear the things we do not know, the shadows. We hate the things we fear, and finally, we  destroy the things we hate. We hide in bubbles of shared opinion, our dense teams of red and blue. When really, we are ALL human. There is a rift in our understanding, a dark chasm we refuse to recognize. We ARE united, like a bungee jumper ignoring their rope, and pretending they can fly. Though thrilling it is to thrive in the bliss of ignorance, we cannot ignore that our survival is sustained by the Black, the Hispanic, the minorities, the hard-working undocumented. We cannot ignore that we live in a hypocritical hierarchy, one with no nets to catch us whence we fall. One where money is the medium of life. We say rights as if we can walk into hospitals with wounds and receive care with no pocket change to give. In fact, we can say that we are suppressing the right to learn to read, and share unique thoughts and opinions, therefore the right of Freedom of Speech. We choke the ones that are not White, lynching them slowly with an undaunted racism. This breeds fear, and hatred. What we need is to learn to learn. The stories of the forgotten, to uplift those that have fallen. The few who fight for rights they have been denied. This is what we need for America.

 

*
Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is a freelance writer specializing in the arts.  She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com