You'd think John Rybicki was a rock star or a sports hero when you see the way students hang on his every word and try to impress him each time he visits Pelham Middle School in Detroit, Michigan. "Mr. Rybicki, pick me, pick me!" several boys shout, their hands jutting into the air. They all want to take up Rybicki's challenge to "get sassy and unleash out loud!"
But Rybicki's star power comes from poetry. He is a professional writer, one of 14 hired to help kids at public schools across Detroit find their inner poet. These students don't save it all for National Poetry Month in April, though. They fine-tune their writing all year long.
Four times a month, Rybicki travels to Pelham to recite the works of famous poets, sprinkling in snippets of his own work and life story. Then he encourages the students to "unleash out loud"--create their own verse.
The program is sponsored by InsideOut, a five-year-old group that aims to get students writing and get their work published and heard. "Writers can be powerful role models," says InsideOut founder Terry Blackhawk, a poet and former writing teacher. "They bring emotion and passion into the classroom."
If you're a poet and you know it ...
At Pelham, InsideOut appears to be working. "Before, I didn't know I could write," says Alvin Eugene Carter Jr., 13. Now four children's literary magazines are competing to publish one of his poems.
Ebony Ransom, 13, has found her inner poet too: "My friends made me think my writing was junk, but Mr. Rybicki lifted me up. I like what I write."
From "Heart Has the Power"
By Ebony Ransom
... I want a heart that makes roses bloom
From between my toes. I gaze into the night's sky
And begin to see the stars as little guys.
The glimpse of the sunset's glare
Sent a gunshot through my jet-black hair.
From "What Is Fire?"
By Alvin Eugene Carter Jr.
... I want to say the word fire and you can see it in my eyes.
I want to take that fire in my eyes and burn the mask off of the man who tried to rob me.
I want that fire to make concentrated smoke.
I want to make that fire scare away the toughest bullies, the maddest dogs.
I want to make that fire change colors and spit it at the sky for everyone to see.
They will see my fire.
They will see the fire that burns in me.