Guest Blogger: Norene Cashen

Norene Cashen is a writer based in Michigan. She's the coordinator for Citywide Poets (Detroit's youth slam team) and a writer-in-residence at InsideOut Literary Arts Project. Between 1996 and 2009, she worked as a freelance arts journalist for Detroit's Metro Times. Her poetry's been published in the anthologies Uncommon Core (Red Beard Press) and Abandon Automobile (Wayne State University Press) and numerous literary journals including Temenos, Adanna, Exquisite Corpse, Detroit: Stories (MOCAD), Quill Puddle, and markszine.com.


The Literary Arts, Practically Speaking

I never planned to teach creative writing in Detroit Public Schools, and I couldn't have predicted how it would change my life. Because children are so dynamic and artless, they write poems with remarkable honesty and purity. Observing their process has given new meaning to my own writing and shown me that poetry belongs to everyone, no matter their age, experience, or expertise.    

I worked as a freelance arts journalist from 1996 till 2008. Most of my articles and reviews appeared in Detroit's Metro Times. I started out writing about rock music, but it became too monotonous. So I moved on to film, live theater, visual art, and literature. As my work in journalism tapered off—from writing multiple articles per month to just a few scattered pieces per year—I became more interested in poetry. Some of my early poems were published in journals, including Exquisite Corpse, Markszine, and Dispatch Detroit, where I later served as a contributing editor. My collection of poems, The Reverse Is also True was published by Doorjamb Press in 2007. The book was recently re-released as part of the Dzanc Books rEprint Series

In the fall 2008, I accepted a position as writer-in-residence with InsideOut Literary Arts Project, a non-profit that places writers in school classrooms to teach creative writing.  On my first day, I walked into a freshman classroom at Cleveland Intermediate High School carrying a stack of Xeroxed copies of a Langston Hughes poem called "Dreams." As I introduced myself to the students, I tried to hide the nervousness I felt inside. I had little experience working with youth, and teenagers could be a tough crowd to win over. In order to lay the groundwork and connect with them, I needed to prove that I had something of value to offer in exchange for their time and energy. 

I began my first workshop by asking one of the students to read the Hughes poem aloud. We all listened to Hughes's heart-wrenching lines: "Hold fast to dreams/For if dreams die/Life is a broken-winged bird/That cannot fly." Despite my lack of experience, the power of that poem captured the students' interest and brought us to a place where we could have a meaningful discussion about emotional tone and messages of hope in poetry. 

It was truly magical. 

That day a class of freshmen learned to use metaphor, and they wrote some very moving lines on the subject of dreams. I learned that there's an inherent energy in great poems that can spark creativity in anyone. 

Since that initial classroom experience, I've led hundreds of creative writing workshops in more than a dozen schools in the city of Detroit. I've worked with students of all ages, from the second grade to high school seniors. In every residency, I've witnessed the way poetry transforms and deepens the young writer's vision of life. Supporting students through the literary arts can also impact their lives in practical ways as well. 

I bumped into a former high school student of mine on the Wayne State University campus a few months ago. I met this young woman during my second year as a writer-in-residence at the Detroit International Academy for Young Women. I remembered her well, because I'd helped her with a scholarship application essay for a journalism program. 

She told me she'd been awarded the scholarship, she was enrolled at Wayne State, and she had also completed an internship at the Washington Post. I was thrilled for her. I was also filled with gratitude, because I get to do work that has real meaning, that changes young people's lives.