Bronx Masquerade Literature and Writing Quotes

We spent a month reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance in our English class. Then Mr. Ward—that's our teacher—asked us to write an essay about it. Make sense to you? Me neither. I mean, what's the point of studying poetry and then writing essays? So I wrote a bunch of poems instead. They weren't too shabby, considering I'd only done a few rap pieces before. My favorite was about Langston Hughes. How was I to know Teach would ask me to read it out loud? But I did. Knees knocking like a skeleton on Halloween, embarrassment bleaching my black cheeks red, eyes stapled to the page in front of me. But I did it, I read my poem. (1.3)

I'm just about ready to sleep off the whole year when this teacher starts talking about poetry. And he rattles off a poem by some white guy named Dylan Thomas that sounds an awful lot like rap. Now, I know me some rap, and I start to thinking I should show Mr. Ward what rap is really all about. So I tell him I've got a poem I'd like to read. "Bring it on Friday," he says. "As a matter of fact, from now on, I'll leave time for poetry readings at the end of every month. We'll call them Open Mike Fridays." Next thing I know, I'm digging my old rap poems out of my dresser drawer and bringing them to school. I'm thinking it can't hurt to share them, even if there's no chance I'll ever get to be a songwriter. (3.3)

A lot of extra kids been showing up in our class on Open Mike Fridays. They heard about the poetry and they been coming to check it out. A bunch of teachers are getting mad at Mr. Ward with all these kids skipping their classes. Everybody's talking about it. (17.1)

I can't believe I'm getting up in front of people and talking about personal stuff, and liking it. I'm saying things that I would never tell anybody, usually. But, I don't know. There's something about reading poetry. It's almost like acting. The room is kind of set up like a stage, anyway. Mr. Ward turns most of the lights out, and we stand in a spot in front of the video camera. Once he switches it on, it's like you become somebody else, and you can say anything, as long as it's in a poem. Then, when you're finished, you just disappear into the dark and sit down, and you're back to being your own self. Gloria says it's the same for her. (23.4)

Open Mike Fridays help. We kind of have our own little clique now. The whole school knows who we are, that we're "the poets." It's weird. For the first time in my life, I'm part of a group that's cool. Who would believe it?

Last month, Mr. Ward gave our class an assignment to write a poem about what frightens us most, in honor of Halloween. A year ago, I might have written about something silly, like ghosts, which I don't even believe in, and even if I did, ghosts would not be at the top of my list. The scariest thing I can think of now is being all alone in the world. (26.14-15)

Me, writing poetry! What a scream. I'm not smart enough to be writing poetry in the first place, though Mr. Ward says I'm smarter than I know. Yeah, well, I wouldn't have bothered trying to write anything except that Open Mike Friday is one time I know I can get Tyrone Bitting's attention, and I've got a thing for Tyrone. Of course, he's got a thing for Tanisha Scott— like every other boy in school. (29.3)

It wouldn't hurt if I could come up with something deep to write about, like Chankara. I wouldn't want to have the experience of someone beating up on me, though. It's bad enough my stepfather talks about me like a dog. (29.9)

I've been thinking we should plan on having a poetry slam next year. I ran the idea past Diondra. She's one of the shyest sistas in our class. At least, she was when school got started. Anyway, I figure if she's into the idea, everybody else should be down with it.

Next thing I need to do is pitch it to Mr. Ward, see if he can get the principal to go for it. Man, I would love to get in some guys from Bronx Science, or one of them other special schools, and turn them into toast at a poetry slam. There's no way they'd beat us. They wouldn't even know what hit 'em! (49.1-2)

It was kinda cool having a published poet in the audience. First he read to us, then we read to him. He really listened to us too, like we were equals. (58.2)

I read her this poem I wrote called "Dream" about doing hip-hop with my own band, and she started crying. My moms don't cry easy, so I felt bad. But she said they were happy tears. "You keep writing, baby," she said. "You're doing good." (74.3)