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Bronx Poets of Warren Street
By Barry Owens
“I don’t need a microphone,” declared Chantay Garcia. Instead, the defiant
20-year-old from “way, way uptown” leapt onto a table and in the light from
the windows of a homey Warren Street loft recited a revenge fantasy poem
that turned on a delicate line about “transcending” her life.
Her audience, made up of teenage peers striving to rise above their bleak
backgrounds and hardscrabble lives in the Bronx, shouted praise and passed
the dictionary.
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“To transcend,” one read aloud, “to exceed usual limits, to go
beyond.”
Amy Sultan could only smile. Sultan, a 20-year Tribeca resident
and a former filmmaker, is one of the directors of a writing program
that aims to teach fundamentals of reading, writing and public speaking
to underprivileged and overlooked teens.
Sultan, who began the group three years ago with teacher Joe Ubiles
and filmmaker Roland Legiardi-Laura, has a large hand in shaping
what she calls the “arc of these kids’ lives.” She often invites
the group into her home, cooks for them, takes them to museums and
parks, and stays up late at night worrying about what “her kids”
are up to when they are not with her.
“I have nightmares,” she said. “I really do.”
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The writing group of a little more than 20 teens meets once a week
to share their poems and offer one another support and gentle criticism,
in what can be emotional sessions filled with hugs as well as words.
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On this recent Saturday the group was rehearsing at Sultan’s
loft for an upcoming poetry slam to celebrate the publication
of “Rebel Voices from the Heights,” a volume of their writing
compiled, edited and paid for by Sultan.
“Beat me down, beat me down, beat me down,” read 17-year-old
Karina Sanchez. “Lions, tigers and beat me down.”
Robbin Keys, a 16-year-old who arrived with a newly pierced
tongue after a three-month absence from the group, broke down
in tears during a reading of a confessional poem about her
recent drinking and pot smoking. Sultan was there to take
her in her arms.
“She’s like my mother, I love her,” Keys said, and then corrected
herself. “Well, not like my mother, but a mother.”
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Many of the teens come from broken homes. Some have histories of drug
and alcohol abuse, some are gang members, others are teen mothers,
and many have been labeled “learning disabled. “By exposing the kids
to the city they otherwise would never see, or simply by settling
for an afternoon in a safe place, they open up,” often in life-changing
ways, Sultan said.
Pearl Quick, 18, was once so guarded and bashful “she wouldn’t even
look up,” said Sultan. Quick has since blossomed into a gregarious
and prolific author of two novels.
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“Everything has changed for the better,” Quick said. “Everything.”
The gatherings in Sultan’s loft have also changed others,
like dancer Mona Hanley, a neighbor.
“I started going and it has been the most eye-opening experience,”
said Hanley, who now volunteers time with the teens. “It has
made me realize my own unique potential.”
The transformative nature of the program and the power of
the young poets’ words were vividly on display at the poetry
slam late last month in Soho.
“Nobody ever hears this part,” said an anxious Sultan. “They
only hear the bad things about these kids.”
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Moments later, each of those kids took a turn at the microphone,
some shouting from memory, others breathlessly reading page
after page of rhymes. The crowd erupted when Danielle Pollard,
wearing army fatigues, delivered like a battle cry the final
line of a poem about struggle and redemption: “My passion may
be over, but my resurrection has only begun.”
And when the once-shy Quick took the stage and charged the room
with the electricity of her words, at least one audience member
was rendered speechless. A woman in heels sat down with her
glass of white wine, turned to a friend, and silently mouthed
a single word:“Wow.”
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