From Spoken Word to Street Art: Urban Arts Camp
Students at this year’s Urban Arts Camp divided their time between spoken word poetry and street art.
For the last two weeks a summer camp that’s the first of its kind in Des Moines Public Schools has been gathering around an artsy campfire tucked up in a corner of the third floor of Central Campus. It’s the Urban Arts Camp comprised of equal parts spoken word poetry and graffiti “writing.” Instead of cabins and counselors there are classrooms and mentors. Plunging into freestyle self-expression keeps the campers cool. They swim in it.
Most of the 25 or so attended Harding Middle School last year. All of them are 8th or 9th graders to be. Many are bound for the Movement 515 and/or Urban Leadership high school programs their mentors began.
Mentors like Leah Waughtal and Bao Luong, 2014 DMPS grads who are back from their first years at the University of Iowa and Grandview University, respectively. They’re actually working paid summer jobs thanks to a grant from United Way as they staff the camp that’s free to the campers. Leah is also coaching the DMPS team that will head for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival in Atlanta July 15-18, an event she’s been a part of as long as DMPS has. Other mentors are 2015 grads Susan Stacy from Hoover who will be part of her second BNV team next month and was recently awarded the first annual RunDSM Scholarship as she heads next to Cornell College, Ethan Anderson from North who is headed for Iowa State University in the fall and Russhaun Johnson, a senior-to-be in the Central Campus Urban Leadership program who is also a BNV veteran having competed as part of last year’s team in Philadelphia.
Leah called the poets to order Thursday morning and started them on some gender word association exercises that were boisterous. Then the room fell silent for 15 minutes as the exercise segued into a poetry assignment.
“Remember,” Leah told them as she set the timer, “writing is sacred.”
So, according to stencils on the classroom wall, are listening, reading and thinking. Heads tilted thoughtfully against hands not busy jotting or drumming pencils on desktops.
When time for writing was up it was time to stand and deliver. A seemingly shy, bashful 8th grader named Emily Chanthavong was surprisingly eager to share her work. Her smile was nervous and pretty, her words tentative and whispery. But as soon as she finished sharing one poem her hand was up asking if she could share another. As her voice gets braver it will bear listening to.
Bao got up to show ‘em how it’s done.
“Did you cut your hair?” someone asked.
“No, I just didn’t do anything to it this morning,” he said abashedly before launching into a stream of self-confidence about young love and mutual attraction.
Susan waxed about a boyfriend and his dangerous powers in a collection of thoughts that had just come together half an hour ago but rang neither spontaneous nor contrived.
Meanwhile, next door the graffitists were mocking up designs they would take outdoors to spray paint onto 8’x8’ boards. Soft jazz played in the background of the classroom. When they moved outside to work beneath the Fleur Drive overpass the soundtrack shifted to the arrhythmic drone of passing traffic.
Overseeing the visual art were local graffiti writers Asphate Woodhavet (read it again slowly) and Gage One. Their commissioned works adorn public spaces around town including the Des Moines Social Club and Harding MS. They were enthusiastic and encouraging as their understudies colorfully and boldly wrote their own names in ways they never had previously, “wildstyle,” with gloves and goggles on that made them resemble surgeons.
Kathryn Swanda will be a freshman at Roosevelt in the fall. She’s practiced in the fine arts, particularly music, but a novice at street art. She signed up for the camp to satisfy one of the curiosities borne of her open mind and hasn’t been disappointed.
“It’s been fun meeting other kids and working with Asphate and Gage,” she said in the midst of a 64 sq. ft. signature KAT with a backward K like the one that denotes a called third strike in a baseball scorebook.
Impressive, but maybe too big to lug home when camp is over. Paint stains may have to do for keepsakes.
