The student news site of Peddie School

The Peddie News

The student news site of Peddie School

The Peddie News

The student news site of Peddie School

The Peddie News

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Poet Entertains Students

By Zoe Gilbard ’14

Taylor Mali, a nationally recognized slam poet, teacher and voice actor, visited Peddie to run a poetry workshop and perform as a Saturday Night Activity on Jan. 11.

Mali currently lives in New York, but spends most of his time traveling the world to perform and teach. He is the author of two books of poetry: What Learning Leaves (2002) and The Last Time As We Are (2009) . He also wrote one book of essays: What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World (2012). Mali has been a member of competitive slam poetry teams, performing on HBO’s ‘Def Poetry Jam’ as well as becoming a four-time National Poetry Slam winner.

In order to give students an opportunity to meet and work with Mali, Kate Westhaver, the creative writing teacher, organized a dinner and workshop on Sat. evening. 12 students, as well as English Teacher Courtney Jackson and Westhaver attended the small gathering in one of the private rooms in the dining hall.

“I’ve been teaching Taylor Mali’s poems for a long time, because his poems contain a rare combination of culturally relevant content and truly hilarious lines,” Westhaver said. “Not to mention the fact that Mali is an amazing performer who has a great sense of rhythm, sound and timing.”

Over dinner, Mali introduced himself to the students and learned their names. In their introductions some students cited him, as well as other famous contemporary poets, as their inspirations. Mali knew some of the poets personally, and decided to call them on the phone. He allowed Malley Chertkov ’15 to talk to poet Jeanann Verlee,

“Your poem ‘Communion’ is what started me writing poetry,” Chertkov said into the phone.

“It’s so nice to meet you Malley,” Verlee replied over speakerphone. “Thank you so much!”

Mali then presented the students with the poem ‘Untitled’ by Jeffrey Yang and asked students to write a poem paralleling its structure. Mali set a timer, allowing the students to work on the assignments for only five minutes and then asked them to read their pieces aloud.

“It’s not about clarity,” Mali said to one student about how to read his poem to the group, “it’s about beauty.”

In order to stop students from hesitating or using filler words such as ‘like’ or ‘um’ while reading their poems, Mali asked everyone to snap their fingers each time one of those words was used.

“I appreciate how Mali coached all of the students in the room on not only their writing but also their speaking,” Westhaver said. “He recognizes that the manner in which we present our work is important, and he wants to help all writers share their work with confidence.”

“Teenagers write about things that are too general,” Mali said to one student after he read his poem. “Describe the broken necklace that was your grandmother’s!”

Mali was looking for detailed images in the poems.

“Fill your writing with stuff,” Mali said, stabbing his plate with his fork to illustrate his point. “Fill your writing with broken pieces of furniture. Fill your writing with stuff you can touch!”

“Having dinner with Taylor Mali was truly an extraordinary experience. The way he gave us commentary on the poems we wrote was humbling to watch, yet he somehow made himself approachable with a number of personal anecdotes throughout the discussion.” Anthony Chau ’14 said.

Mali did comical impressions of friends and teachers, as well as quoting Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and William Carlos Williams from memory throughout the evening.

Later, at his performance in Efros Auditorium, Mali presented eleven of his original poems including his most famous poems ‘What Teachers Make’ and ‘On Girls Lending Pens’ to a full room of students and faculty. Mali asked if there were any questions throughout the performance, prompting a cohesive dialogue between himself and the audience.

“Mali is able to move an entire room of people to silence with poems that focus on subjects like death and loss,” said Westhaver about Mali’s performance, “Minutes later, he had all of us laughing hysterically over the ridiculous things he did when he was a child. What Mali does is what all great performers and artists do: he uses his art to bring people together.”

Having heard that Kavita Oza ’14 had performed his poem ‘Totally Like Whatever, You Know?’ at the Declamation Contest on Jan. 9, Mali called her up to perform it again for a new audience. To the crowd’s delight, Oza did so. Mali enjoyed her performance and hugged her afterwards.

“Performing a poet’s piece in front of its author is every performers’ dream,” Oza said. “I can’t believe he actually invited me onto his stage to do his piece. It was like amazing, you know? He’s such a great person and I am so honored to have had that opportunity.”

“I think Taylor Mali is an exceptional poet, performer and person,” said Westhaver, “I hope we’ll see him back at Peddie very soon.”

 

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