This page has moved: http://www.bordervoices.com/bordervoices/Welcome.html Border Voices A 10-Year Crusade for Poetry in San Diego “This program truly shines above most in the state.  Border Voices nurtures young people to be artists; it is a wonderful resource for the community.” - Phyllis Epstein     vice chair, California Arts Council “Border Voices is the future of poetry in the United States.” - Dana Gioia Incoming chair of the National Endowment for the Arts The 10-year-old Border Voices Poetry Project currently sends 19 poets, several of them bilingual in English, Spanish or other languages, into hundreds of classrooms in San Diego County.  The non-profit program is supported by a consortium of institutions, including The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego State University, the County Office of Education, and a majority of San Diego school districts, including the San Diego Unified. Donors include the San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture, the California Council for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, and other state and local agencies and individuals.  Training for poet-teachers is provided by California Poets in the Schools. Border Voices has won a number of local and statewide awards for “outstanding contributions to the teaching of English/language arts,” and teacher testimonials are available showing that it has substantially improved student scores on standardized tests, while engendering a love of learning and literature.  The project publishes annual anthologies of poems by students as well as major poets; students interact with internationally acclaimed poets on Border Voices TV specials and at the annual Border Voices Poetry Fair at San Diego State University, and student poems appear in the Union-Tribune.  PLANS FOR 2003  It will be lights, camera, action ? and lots of poetry for the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, as Border Voices launches poetry workshops for Native Americans using a grant from the Viejas tribe.  The project will be documented in a videotape produced by a San Diego State University film crew.       Students involved in the project will also be featured on Border Voices TV specials during 2003.       In April 2003, the 10 annual Border Voices anthology will appear.  It will contain poems and art by students from schools throughout the county, as well as poems and biographies of the internationally acclaimed poets who will appear at the annual Poetry Fair on April 25-26.  The fair ? which is free and open to the public ? will feature Francisco X. Alarcón, a leader of the Chicano literary movement; Sandra McPherson, who appeared in Bill Moyers’ The Language of Life TV series; Amy Gerstler, renowned for her witty and insightful poetry, and UCSD’s David Antin, who has been described as a mixture of Mark Twain and Gertrude Stein.  Also featured will be two up-and-coming San Diego poets, Christine Huynh and Donna J. Watson, and the music of Peter Sprague and his jazz band.  TELEVISION SERIES  Major poets, including several Pulitzer Prize winners, have appeared on Border Voices specials since 1999. This popular series is sent via cable to 850,000 households and 15,000 classrooms in San Diego County.  Border Voices TV shows are aired several times a week throughout the year on ITV. The newest TVspecial features Dana Gioia, the incoming chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, talking poetry with Border Voices director Jack Webb and two Border Voices students.  It can be seen beginning Feb. 25, 2003, when it will be aired at 9 a.m. and 8 p.m., and on Feb. 28 at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.           Other Border Voices specials feature such renowned artists as U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins;  Nicaragua’s Ernesto Cardenal; W.S. Merwin, and Naomi Shihab Nye.            Check your TV guide for the ITV channel for your cable service, and for a full listing of Border Voices showtimes.   HOW TO GET A BORDER VOICES POET INTO THE CLASSROOM Call the Border Voices hotline at 619-293-2546 and leave your name and address.  A booklet explaining the program will be mailed to you.  Or call Celia Sigmon, coordinator of poet-teachers, at 619-766-4997. A CONCISE HISTORY OF BORDER VOICES Border Voices had its inception in February 1993, shortly after project director Jack Webb joined the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at San Diego State University.  Jack, an assistant news editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune, realized that the MFA program, with its corps of creative writers, could be very effective in training youth in self-expression when combined with the already established California Poets in the Schools.  He formed a collaborative between SDSU, the Union-Tribune, and city and county school districts, as well as major foundations, corporations and artistic organizations, to bring creative writers into schools.  Jack also arranged for student poetry to be published in the Union-Tribune, for an anthology of student poetry to be published and made available in major bookstores, and for an annual celebration of poetry and the humanities to be held in Balboa Park as the culmination of the academic year’s activities. All this was accomplished the first year (1993-1994).  By the second year, the Padres and Chargers had agreed to become co-sponsors of the Border Voices project, giving prizes to San Diego student poets, and the Metropolitan Transit District was placing Border Voices poetry, including poetry by students and major poets, on buses and trolleys. Because of the increasing crowds, the fair was moved in 1998 from Balboa Park’s Casa del Prado theater to the much larger Aztec Center on the San Diego State University campus. In February 1999, the Border Voices TV specials began airing on ITV.   Financed in part by the County Office of Education, the specials featured interviews with and readings by the poets appearing at the annual fair. In Spring 2000, the Institute for Learning, San Diego City Schools, financed a pilot project in which Border Voices poetry workshops were used as part of an intensive effort to raise test scores and increase literacy and the love of learning among underachieving students.  Because of the success of that project, the Institute is seeking funds to expand the program threefold.  In Spring 2001, the San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture funded Border Voices workshops for Hispanic families at the Casa Familiar social center in San Ysidro.  In 2002, the California Arts Council awarded Border Voices an Exemplary Arts Organization grant.  The grant was earmarked for intensive poetry workshops in all 32 classrooms at Pershing Middle School, and for a study of the most effective ways of teaching creative writing. The workshops were completed in calendar year 2002, and the post-workshop analysis will be completed in Spring 2003. Over the last 10 years, the project has brought some of the top names in the literary world to San Diego to work with students and the general public.  In 2002 Maya Angelou and U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins appeared at the fair.  Those appearing at earlier fairs and Border Voices events included poet laureates Robert Pinsky and Robert Hass; Lawrence Ferlinghetti;  Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz; Susan Sontag; Adrienne Rich; Pulitzer Prize winners Gary Snyder and Philip Levine; Li-Young Lee;  filmmaker Michael Moore; Mexico City’s Alberto Blanco, and Ireland’s Eavan Boland. Border Voices has received numerous awards for its work, including (1) An Award of Merit at the annual convention of the California Association of Teachers of English for “outstanding contributions to the teaching of English/language arts.” (2) Exemplary Partnership Award from San Diego City Schools.  (3) Celebrate Literacy Award from the Greater San Diego Reading Association. (4) An Odin Award from the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild for services to the San Diego writing community. Currently, the Border Voices executive board includes Jack Webb; Celia Sigmon, an SDSU instructor and Border Voices poet;  Jim Milner, Border Voices poet, and Veronica Cunningham, Border Voices poet and former area coordinator of California Poets in the Schools; and Chris Baron, professor at San Diego City College.  Chris Dickerson, resource teacher for GATE at San Diego City Schools and a former board member, continues to help edit the annual anthology and other Border Voices publications, and plays a key role in activities leading up to the annual fair. Hearing voices Poetry program picks finest word workers from elementary, middle and high schools By Jack Webb STAFF WRITER The winners in the 10th annual Border Voices poetry contest (from left): Emma Townsend-Merino, middle school division; Carlo Victa, high school division; and Daniel Penner, elementary school division.  Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune April 29, 2003 There's a bounce in her voice, there on the answering machine: "Hello! This is Veronica, poet in the universe! Leave a message!" Her full name is Veronica Cunningham, and you can meet her today, at the 10th annual Border Voices Poetry Fair at San Diego State University, where she will be acting as fair moderator with Dr. William Nericcio. She may do some magic tricks. She may sing a song. She will introduce some of the best musicians and poets working their crafts in 21st century America, including Hispanic literary superstar Francisco X. Alarcon. And at one point, early this afternoon, she'll probably get one of her warm, silly, proud smiles on her face as her student, Emma Townsend-Merino, accepts the first-place award in the middle-school division for her poem "Road to Hope," which begins: I come from Spicy bean burritos Eaten in a worn-out auto Running out of Mexico Without a second glance "When a kid writes a great poem like that, or a great line, and their classmates are stunned ? they applauded her ? that's the best magic," Cunningham said. "That's why I teach." Winners of the 10th annual Border Voices Poetry Fair: First Place, High School Algebra and the Middle East  Somewhere men sleep on coarse beds of fiery coals Lying with warm tears streaming from open eyes They wake with a pervading air of hopelessness, Rising, like volcanic steam from a bathtub. And we will factor polynomials. Somewhere grenades are A6 next to pretzels in vending machines  And ignorant men covered with gasoline are smoking cigarettes Igniting themselves like makeshift torches with lighter fluid As their innocent children play tag in minefields. And we must solve linear inequalities. Now the world slides like ice on a hot iron When our tables are soaked with gasoline Only God can save us from lighting them And burning with our rational expressions and linear interpolations. Math test after lunch.  Carlo Victa Grade 11, Morse High Poet-Teacher: Glory Foster Teacher: Robert Lunsford  First Place, Elementary Ode to Soy Sauce  Smell the salty ocean water-like sauce. Watch as it pours out of its pot like brown polluted water into a bowl. It is the death messenger. It prepares many fish for the final tests. The teeth, the tongue, the esophagus, the stomach, the intestines. It pours on rice like a tidal wave  strikes a city. Many fish would run from it if they were leg-bearing but unfortunately, they aren't. So I'll have to eat them. Look at the terror of its ally, wasabi! Watch as it finishes the process of sushi-preparation. Stare as it molds itself around the fish and makes it melt.  Daniel Penner Grade 5, San Diego Jewish Academy Poet-Teacher: Jill Moses Teacher: Lani Weatherhead  First Place, Middle School The Road to Hope I come from Spicy bean burritos Eaten in a worn-out auto Running out of Mexico Without a second glance Sweet apricots Stolen from trees Feeding the intense hunger That comes from the long hours Of picking fruit Scalding Yuma, Arizona A place to settle Get a better job Teach kids how To speak English Comforting albondigas Eaten by a fire Of stolen logs While coyotes dance In the moonlight I come from Weary travelers Living on the edge of chaos Until they come to lost liberty America  Emma Townsend-Merino Grade 7, Lewis Middle Poet-Teacher: Veronica Cunningham Teacher: James Good   Cunningham is one of 19 poets in San Diego's Border Voices Poetry Project. Sponsored by San Diego State University and The San Diego Union-Tribune, Border Voices sends poets into hundreds of classrooms in the county, as well as Tijuana; prints an annual anthology of student poems and verse by major poets; features internationally acclaimed poets working with students on a weekly TV show; and ? oh yes ? holds an annual poetry fair, the latest edition of which ends today. But it's the students who are closest to the hearts of the Border Voices poets, all of whom are also members of California Poets in the Schools. And teaching poetry can be tough as well as exciting. "I have 12 alphabetized boxes of lesson plans," Cunningham said. "The one I used in Emma's class was a lesson to honor heritage and voice. You collect strands of where you come from and weave them into a poem." Cunningham, who's been teaching poetry since 1984, sighed. "It's a real dance to get them to not be ashamed of where they've come from, whether they're immigrants or children of immigrants. "At the same time, you can have a great lesson plan and have to change it, in a moment you can't plan or control. I was at the Jackie Robinson Y once, teaching poetry in summer school, and the kids were into a lot of put-downs ? no matter what I said, they couldn't stop putting each other down. "So I put the lesson aside, and asked them to say 20 positive things about themselves. We turned it into a poem, mounted it around the room, and it changed that classroom forever. They were surrounded by the possible." Border Voices poets teach kids at every level, from elementary through high school, and in every sort of classroom, from remedial to gifted. Each class requires a special sort of "dance," the poets say. But, they add, it's worth it. "I get really excited about what the kids can do," said Border Voices poet Gloria Foster, who taught Carlo Victa, the first-place winner in the high school division. "So many times the teachers will say 'I never knew they were capable of that.' But if you make it play for them, they really do get into it; it may even be the goof-offs in the class who will turn out to be the best poets. "And then you walk across campus afterwards, like at Pershing Middle School, and some little kid will run up and say, 'Oh, poetry lady, when are you coming back again?' That's such a reward." All of the Border Voices teachers write poetry themselves. "I write to give a voice to a voiceless thing ... We need to be a voice for what goes on around us, the beauty, and the horror," says Foster. "If I make something clear to myself, hopefully it makes things clear for others, in an act of love." Jill Moses, who taught elementary-school winner Daniel Penner, agrees, though not without a joke: "I teach and write poetry because it pays so well ? just kidding. "I kind of feel like it's my mission to bring poetry to people, and help them tap into their creative resources. For me, poetry is a catharsis. It's always been very healing for me, and I guess my hope is that, if I write about things going on around and in me, it can help or move someone else in some way." Jack Webb, an assistant news editor for the Union-Tribune, is founder and director of the Border Voices poetry project.