Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:
April is poetry month here in New Brunswick.
In honour of the month, renowned New Brunswick poet Thandiwe McCarthy will hold a spoken word poetry workshop for students at Tantramar Regional High School.
McCarthy is an author, performer, and poet. He is also cofounder of the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance, which we discuss later on.
As an wellness advocate and professional, he will be teaching high school students the art of spoken word poetry to access their innermost thoughts and feelings.
“I was looking into the New Brunswick grade 12 exit survey, and it said that most high schoolers, when they graduate, have a sense that they got something from high school. But when asked what they wanted to do, they have no idea,” McCarthy says.
“They went through over 10 years of schooling, and they think it was valuable, but it didn’t point them in any single direction.”
Spoken word poetry, he says, will be used as a tool to discover what students might want to do after they graduate.
McCarthy learned the art of performance as a child growing up in an energetic and vibrant household.
“If there are eight people talking in a house, and you need to walk to the store to buy candy, you have to put on a show!” he says. “You have to stop seven people from talking so they’ll put the spotlight on you, say what you need, try and get as many people to join your side as possible… I was born in it, it was never taught to me at an educational institution. It’s in my bones.”
As for poetry, that came much later in his life. McCarthy says that it is through his recent discovery of poetry that he began to explore his identity as a Black New Brunswicker.
“I started writing poetry very recently, probably about three years ago, when I was in this sense of discovery of my culture,” McCarthy remembers. “I realized I was Black three years ago, and through poetry and writing have kind of discovered my culture, my history, and things that were important to my identity that I never could articulate before.”
McCarthy also formed the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance, so that artists such as himself can have a community to share their art outside of white spaces.
“The organization is really there to provide community, advocacy, and workshops…I want to build a strong community where people feel safe to express who they are.”
“I came up with the name for myself ‘the one Black poet,’ because when I was in all of these spaces, I was truly often the only person of color, not just the only Black person, in all these rooms,” he remembers. “I feel my job is to go into these places and then project my experience of ‘I have never felt more welcomed’ in those places. When you’re with artists it’s all about creativity and culture, and I have never been so more welcomed than I have in a group of artists.”
McCarthy says that students attending his online workshop, called “Talking Troubles,” should prepare to get personal.
“Bring some courage, because we’re going to be talking about troubles,” warns McCarthy. “I’m going to introduce people to the six dimensions of wellness… and just talk about [one of those] and write a poem from that, and then practice presenting it. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
McCarthy also has a book, Social Oblivion: Raised Black in New Brunswick, which he is sending off to publishers.
The spoken word poetry workshop is this Sunday, April 7th from 4PM to 5:30PM, and sign up information is available here.
Sign up by today if you’re interested, it will fill up fast!
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