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At nineteen or twenty, I was disengaged and adrift -- enrolled in college but feeling no reason to be there because I thought it was a place you went to learn about business and get a job. Then I took "Introduction to Creative Writing" with Maggie and found a reason to be a college student: you could be an English major and just take classes where you read and wrote. In my second class with Maggie, we introduced ourselves and explained why we were taking the class. I introduced myself as someone who liked words and the ways different arrangements of words could sound different, good, even beautiful. When Maggie introduced herself to the class, she said she shared that fascination with words and arrangements and sounds. Just like that I learned you could build a life out of loving language. l followed that discovery through graduation and grad school.
But then I had to find a job. Sometime in the middle of my first year teaching high school English, the phone rang in my room; it was David Hassler, introducing himself to me as a poet and former student of Maggie's, who said he should contact me and see about working together. David then came to my class, shared his work, led some writing workshops, and brought 4 Corner Soul in to read and perform. We drank coffee during free periods and got to know each other. Soon, the Wick Center created a pilot course, "Teaching Poetry in the Schools" through which I had the opportunity to work with David and his students teaching poetry writing together. The following year, the pilot course became a full semester course that climaxed with the first Giving Voice.
Last night was the eighth Giving Voice. In those eight years, I've had the chance of working with dozens of terrific KSU students, including my own brother. Also, this year, I had the joy of collaborating with one of my former students, Phil Krupansky. Phil as a senior wrote a poem in my class that won a scholarship in the Wick High School Poetry Competition. Later that year, he participated in the workshops with David's outreach students and read at Giving Voice. And now, he's a student in David's class teaching poetry workshops to my current students. (I now expect Phil to enter and win the chapbook competition after he graduates...)These are all opportunities that don't exist without the Wick Center.
Last night at Giving Voice I was as always overwhelmed and felt no less grateful and filled with good feeling than I did at the first. In fact, I felt those things more deeply than ever. I was standing on stage with over 100 students. Twelve of them were mine, students I admire and respect and am very lucky to have had the chance to work with. And across the stage in the group of third graders was my daughter; sharing the stage with her and watching her sing had me trembling in a beautiful realm beyond or not in need of words.
Too, I palpably shared the stage with memories of my sister-in-law (and colleague), Lori, who attended every Giving Voice and came on stage one year to sing with the students. Three years ago, Chris Wick joined in the singing of "I Have a Song" (a Giving Voice greatest hit) and added when he stepped to the mic these lyrics: "I have a song. It's an Ohio song. It's an Arizona song. I'll sing it all day long. I have a song. It's a cousin song. It's a brother song. I'll sing it all day long". When I saw Lori in her office the next day, she as always raved about the evening and said how much she loved Chris' words, which perfectly captured what the evening is about and why the Wick Center was created.
The next year, Lori was dead, killed at thirty eight by a blood clot. Months after she died David came to Maplewood and led a staff and student workshop where we got to remember Lori, write about and speak to her, and cry together. Then at Giving Voice, we were able to mourn and memorialize her by reading a sequence of letters to her. It's hard to express an adequate gratitude for that.
I am grateful to the Wick Center in ways that can never be quantified. When I was an aimless and probably self-absorbed college student, Maggie listened to my woes in her office. She also taught me how to write and how to teach. Above all, she taught me that you can build a life out of a passion for words. And she introduced me to David, a friend I can't imagine not being an intimate part of my adult life. There are quantifiables, though, too. Twelve of my students have won Wick scholarships totalling somewhere around $86,000.00. That's a lot of money -- and better yet a lot of opportunity.
The thing is, without Wick, my students would still be writing poems and sharing work; but we wouldn't have the larger community we now exist in, and we wouldn't have a venue for our work. We wouldn't have Giving Voice -- the stage, the ritual, the music and the song. It's one thing to write; it's another to be heard, to be listened to. It was one thing to grieve together over Lori's death and to miss her; it was something else to mourn her publicly in a formal setting to an audience of 600 people, some of whom cried in response, all of whom stood and applauded after. It feels paltry to say "thank you", but in the humblest and most sincere manner I say, Thank you. There's not much of my adult life I can imagine without the influence and support of the Wick Center. Thank you.
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