After two years of searching the classified section of The Washington Post, Kwame Alexander finally saw the job advertisement he had been looking for: poet wanted.

The job entailed for someone to go into schools and share poetry with students and inspire them. Alexander said his first thought was “How hard could it be?”

Alexander, who is the author of 21 New York Times bestsellers, gave a talk on Thursday in Grant Auditorium called “The Good Ones: How Language Marginalizes and Literature Empowers Our Children.”

The poet kicked off the evening by giving some background on himself and his experience on how poetry could empower students.

One of the first schools Alexander was ever sent to was a juvenile detention facility. He said he saw hopelessness in the children’s eyes, and the security guard said to him, “I don’t even know why you’re here man. They’re not going to listen to you.”

After reading a poem to the room full of boys, Alexander said his poetry “somehow connected with them,” and they wanted to hear more and write their own.

Alexander said in his mind that he was never going to come back because it was the hardest thing he ever had to do.

However, when he got home that night, his wife asked if he was going to go back and when he said no, she said, “It’s probably the best thing because they don’t really expect you to come back. Nobody ever comes back for them.”

But Alexander returned to the juvenile detention facility, and during the next six months he spent with them, he said he discovered more and more about how language can empower and marginalize.

To emphasize his point of the power language has to marginalize, Alexander explained his struggle when writing the book “Crossover.” Alexander was rejected by more than 20 publishers because his poetry “doesn’t sell” and because “girls wouldn’t want to read about basketball.”

Alexander never stopped trying, but he said he was lucky. He said people sometimes get so caught up in their expectations of how the world is supposed to be that they fail to inform and inspire.

“What about the kids who didn’t have the parents who didn’t allow him to be marginalized?” Alexander said. “ … Or the kid who accepted the ‘F’ in class because he didn’t know he was being marginalized? What about that kid?”

Published on November 15, 2015 at 8:22 pm

Contact BreeAnna: blposhek@syr.edu