Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, where I teach College Writing I, has more than 13,000 students, including almost 500 veterans. The average student age is 27. More than half are women, and 77 percent are people of color. Forty-four percent receive Pell Grants.
Many are immigrants, from more than ninety-five countries. The languages spoken in the class that wrote these poems include Creole, Spanish, Portuguese (one via Brazil, one via Angola), French and Swahili. The site of Bunker Hill CC, where Charlestown prison once stood, has good progressive credentials. This is where Sacco and Vanzetti were jailed and executed. The prison library was where Malcolm X went to read. The film Good Will Hunting was set here.
This summer I was tracking down a student whose family has been lost in the civil war in Mali. After I wrote a column about hunger on college campuses, Bunker Hill hosted its fourth food bank in three months, an eighteen-wheeler filled by the Greater Boston Food Bank. The food was gone in ninety minutes. Amid all this, two students from here will study at MIT this fall.
As these poems show, Bunker Hill students have plenty of intellect. The best are as bright as any I have encountered in my platinum-spoon life. What’s missing for the students here is seat time to master intellectual and academic skills. They have not read the Western canon by the time they are 18. They have not already written half a dozen research papers in MLA style when they arrive in my class. But they are able to understand the books and write such papers when shown the way.
As with any class, sometimes nothing works. I pulled out Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” as a last resort one day and asked the students to write their own versions, saying only that they may choose a verb other than “singing.” The results the first time astonished me. They still do. My hope is that we can encourage teachers everywhere to steal this assignment and flood the US Capitol with the results. Our hope for America is that whatever crimes we may commit, voices like these will keep bubbling up and send the country soaring.
I Hear America Crying by Chantal Midgette
I hear America crying; the varied sounds I hear;
The young teenager ends her dreams because a newborn child interferes
The widow, mother of four who lost her husband in a war
The woman being abused at home, praying to live life no more
The bullied child at school who is in pain
The Afghan family hoping they’ll be accepted again
The black man on death row for killing his own kind
Too late to turn back time, a brown leather cowl will make him blind
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The white man judged as a racist for protecting himself from a black gunman
Sad to see that people doesn’t care that he’s a veteran
Crying, with tears, falling down to their ears, the sounds I hear
I Hear America’s Prayers by Fellipe de Moraes
I hear America’s prayers, the beautiful vocals I hear
The mother’s night prayer for her son to make it home safe
The mechanic’s prayer for his back to heal to work
The child’s prayer for his animal companion to not die,
The college student’s prayer for courage to ask a girl out on a date,
The diplomat’s prayer to stop Taliban violence in the Middle East,
Prayers by all, and welcomed by God—their beautiful vocal voices I hear
I See America Changing by Neehmias Afonso
I see America changing, from the very path that got us here.
Rich becoming richer, not wanting to be brethren.
Kids becoming closed-minded, as nonsense is being fed to their brains.
People dying, because a single smile doesn’t hold a meaning anymore.
Parents crying, wondering what ever happened to their pride and joy.
Neighbors shutting out, as if they weren’t people themselves.
I see America deteriorating, from the very morals it stood on.
I Don’t Hear America Singing by Joe Saia
I don’t hear America singing, I hear shooting and killing.
The killings of American soldiers off duty.
The shooting going on in front of little Lucy as she sits on her porch crying.
The father not coming home, who had been gunned down on Roxbury Ave.
The mother crying over her son’s body, dead for no good reason.
The kid carrying a gun, so he can feel safe walking down the street.
I can even see a toddler pretending to kill, as he sees his father prepare to shoot.
Quick, precise, fast, consistent, easy trigger movements, all to get that bullet out of the gun.
America is shooting and getting the killings over with.
I See the Youth Working by Arlyn Gonzales
I see elementary schools working; the various tasks I see,
Those of kindergartners—each one learning their ABCs and 123s;
The first graders work, as they develop their basic sentences and math abilities;
The second graders task, as they prepare for multiplication, or reading stories;
The third graders, as they’re introduced to history—and novels afoot;
The fourth graders working on experiments, as well as the MCAS;
The fifth graders’ job—brainstorming, with ideas through a computer, or presentations they prepared,
The scuffing paperwork of the teachers—or the pans of the cafeteria crew—or of the custodians cleaning
after the studious youth—each working towards their respective goals;
Working, with great responsibility, the future of the next generation
