Poetry helped this newbie Concord senior find his place

JoAnn Balingit
Special to The News Journal
As a new senior at Concord High School, Christian Wills decided to enter the Poetry Out Loud contest, winning the school title.

 

Nineteen-year-old Christian Wills, “Artist, Poet, UD student and jack of all trades!” is feeling confident and enthusiastic about life — in case you can’t tell from his by-line.

The University of Delaware student is an aspiring poet, musical artist and host of a popular new Wilmington poetry slam and open mic series, held every second Sunday at UDairy Creamery on Market Street. 

Wills opens the evening in The Creamery’s colorful space with a new poem or song, then as Master of Ceremonies, hands the floor over to everyone else. “Time is not an issue. In the two-hour window we have, everyone who signed up gets to perform. Then I ask if there’s anyone else.”

Sometimes five or six more people come up to the mic, inspired.

Wills once wrote a poem for his mom entitled “Superwoman.”

“My mother is a huge inspiration for me,” says Wills. “She’s proud.”

And he is proud. His mother, he says, has been writing short poems.

“She records her thoughts on her phone. She inspired me to translate my experiences into poetry.”

At the first open mic event at The Creamery in October, Theresa Wills performed a piece inspired by Christian and her role as his mother.

Now seven months later, the UDairy Creamery monthly open mic is going strong.

“In December, our third month, we did a slam contest. We had 15 performers that night,” says Wills. “The crowd was massive, we could barely fit everybody in.”

Growing up in Temple Hills, Maryland, Christian Wills began writing raps and hip-hop songs, genres he was accustomed to as a boy. Then one night in 2014, for a tenth grade English class assignment, he wrote a poem called “Philly Streets.” It’s a poem is about place and belonging:

I double-check my belongings as I brave
This long journey I know I must take
And I pain through the wait when I cross
State to state, I'm anxious

“I often visited my mother in Wilmington and Philadelphia area during summer and winter breaks. This poem was basically dedicated to my trips to visit my mother as a child.”

“Along the way, I leaned into writing poems.” 

In 10th grade at Crossland High School, Wills remembers being introduced to Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask.” But the words for his most powerful experience that year were his own.

“A friend was crying in class. Her mom had brain cancer. I wanted to comfort her, so I wrote her a song. It said, We’re here for you.

“At that moment when I gave her the song, I knew I could give people hope. I could help them feel better.”

He began asking to complete his school projects by writing a song or a poem whenever it allowed.

That year, Wills was chosen junior class “cypher” for spirit week, though he felt people didn’t know him.

“There were students and the faculty filling every corner of the room, and I was to perform alone at the mic.”

He performed his heart out with an original song, to huge applause.

Then in May “huge, unexpected family issues arose.”

The junior who felt he belonged suddenly had to move from Maryland to Delaware. Living with his mother, Wills finished his 11th grade classes online. In fall 2015, he found himself enrolled at Concord High School in Wilmington. “A newbie, my senior year." 

“As a new kid, I thought this Poetry Out Loud contest would be a way to help me solidify and differentiate myself.” He chose three poems from the huge Poetry Out Loud anthology and began to memorize them.

Poetry Out Loud, now in its 14th year, is a national poetry memorization and recitation contest for high school students. It encourage students to learn about great poetry and practice speaking skills.

Starting with classroom competitions, the contest moves to state finals and culminates each year in Washington D.C. with performances by 53 students, who represent each state, the U.S Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The national champion walks away with a $20,000 scholarship.   

“Before, I understood a competition faced me. Afterwards, I had a better appreciation for poetry.” Christian Wills won his school competition and competed at the 2016 state finals in Dover, representing Concord High.

“I lost the contest, no regrets. I loved the experience altogether.” The “newbie” felt at home in poetry.

Wills describes having another coming-of-age moment.

“I walked the Riverfront trail and toured the Observation Deck on my birthday. I looked out on the city of Wilmington in all its splendor. I wanted to make a change to a silent city waiting to wake itself up — with a lyrical revolution.”

Wills doesn’t take credit for founding Wilmington’s latest open mic. It was LeeAnne Ahamad’s idea, the manager for the Creamery’s Wilmington location.

“She knew about my love of poetry. She asked if I wanted to run an event for 2017 National Poetry Day.”

September 28, National Poetry Day, had the theme of “Freedom.”

“The reason I continue to host the Open Mic is to give back to Wilmington and give a voice to people. To have an environment where anyone can have the freedom to be themselves, a platform to speak from the mind and heart.”

It’s something I am very proud to be a part of. I consider Wilmington my new home.”

Christian Wills recommends poet Eve L. Ewing, whose poem “to the notebook kid” he recited for Poetry Out Loud. “I was surprised to find that poem—some of the Poetry Out Loud poems are very new.”

“I felt like I was the notebook kid. I had this big magenta-colored folder. Thick and heavy. I didn’t have a phone. I typed and wrote everything that came into my mind. Pages and pages. I put everything into that folder.”

“I used to be a middle school English Language Arts teacher,” writes Ewing, “and I definitely wrote my book with a middle or high school audience in mind.”

Eve L. Ewing is also a sociologist of public education and a visual artist. Many of her poems explore themes of place and belonging. Ewing believes art exposure and art-making are crucial for young people. 

Ewing explains, “Artistic practice has a lot to teach young people in terms of what it means to try. And make mistakes, and try something again, to not be afraid of failure, to experiment, to problem-solve. Those are all parts of the artistic process that can teach us really important skills that we all want to learn in life.”

Wills agrees.

“Friends and family and teachers over the years have believed in my ability to create. To change the world around me. I hold onto that inspiration, along with my notion of hope and a better future. I want to lead and inspire others.”

For more on Eve L. Ewing go to https://eveewing.com/. Find Christian Wills on FB or Instagram @chris_anthem777. To watch a live webcast of the 2018 Poetry Out Loud national finals April 24-25, go to www.arts.gov/partnerships/poetry-out-loud

JoAnn Balingit is a writer, editor and educator who served as Delaware’s poet laureate from 2008 to 2015. To celebrate National Poetry Month she highlights local poets and weekly events in “On Poetry.” For more on JoAnn’s upcoming events and classes go to http://joannbalingit.org

As a new senior at Concord High School, Christian Wills decided to enter the Poetry Out Loud contest, winning the school title.


Take Me to the Moon

by Christian Wills

Someone, anyone
Please, take me to the moon
I've heard about its rumored tales
Of the golden-paved roads layered in cheese
How it often gets tangled within the ropes of trees
The footsteps left by man
Or beings not from this world
How it hides it darker side
And when it shows
Hides its face altogether
It's a magical mystery I must solve so
Someone, anyone
Please take me to the moon

I want to see how small and insignificant Earth is
From one of its many craters
Discover the vastness of space from its surface
Looking in all directions
As I've heard the moon has no up and down
Questionable as it clearly knows how to spin
and move around
Defined by no borders
See how the moon dances around the Earth,
reminding us how free it is in all of its glory
The moon paints the universe as its Star Spangled Banner
See it without suspicion
If anyone can fulfill my wish,
Someone, anyone
Please take me to the moon
//
In exchange I can give you my deepest secrets
My inner thoughts, wrapped around a pocket full of
sunshine
I have words crafted in stardust
A bottle of wishes
Lamps and vases that hold hope
A small cup containing the very essence of victory
The vastness of an entire universe covered in the
palms of my hands
And beauty, locked in a chest, with your name written
on it
I'll give it all just to gleam at the spectacle that
lights the night sky
The message I have to share with the world is
insufficient and underappreciated
//
Someone, anyone
Please, take me to the moon

“Take Me To the Moon” [excerpt] reprinted by permission of the author. Copyright © 2018 by Christian Wills.
 

to the notebook kid

by Eve L. Ewing

yo chocolate milk for breakfast kid. 
one leg of your sweatpants rolled up
scrounging at the bottom of your mama’s purse
for bus fare and gum
pen broke and you got ink on your thumb kid

what’s good, hot on the cement kid
White Castle kid 
tongue stained purple 
cussin on the court
till your little brother shows up 
with half a candy bar kid

got that good B in science kid 
you earned it kid
etch your name in a tree
hug your granny on her birthday 
think of Alaska when they shootin
curled-up dreams of salmon
safety 
tundra
the farthest away place you ever saw in a book
polar bears your new chess partners 
pickax in the ice
Northern Lights kid

keep your notebook where your cousins won’t find it.
leave it on my desk if you want 
shuffle under carbon paper
and a stamp that screams late
yellow and red to draw the eye from the ocean 
you keep hidden in a jacked-up five star.
your mama thought there was a secret in there 
thought they would laugh
but that ain’t it.

it’s that flows and flows and flows
and lines like those rip-roaring 
bits you got
bars till the end of time 
you could rap like
helium bout to spring 
all of it
down to you
none left in the sun — fuelless
while the last light pushes from your belly

climbing your ribs

and you laugh into the microphone 
and who is ready for that?

from Electric Arches, published by Haymarket Books. Copyright © 2017 by Eve L Ewing.