TeachRock

Happy National Poetry Month!
To celebrate, we are showcasing some of our favorite poets featured in TeachRock lessons:

Amanda Goreman 

The daughter of a 6th grade English teacher in Los Angeles, Amanda Goreman always had a passion for reading and writing. By her early 20s, she had already authored two collections of poetry, The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough, and The Hill We Climb and other Poems. In 2017, she was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, having previously served as the youth poet laureate of Los Angeles. Gorman was selected by the Presidential Inaugural Committee for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to recite a  poem at the 59th Presidential Inauguration Swearing-In Ceremony on January 20, 2021, making her the youngest poet to have served in this role. At the ceremony, she recited her poem, “The Hill We Climb.” In addition to writing, she is the founder and executive director of One Pen One Page, an organization providing free creative writing programs for underserved youth.

Goreman’s poetry is featured in the TeachRock lesson Identifying and Resisting Jim Crow with Words and Songs, where students compare her work with the songwriting of Nina Simone.

Gwendolyn Brooks 

While originally from Topeka, Kansas, Brooks is perhaps best associated with the South Side of Chicago, where she lived the majority of her life. Another daughter of a school teacher, Brooks began writing at a young age, and became a published poet at the age of 13. By the time she graduated high school, she was regularly contributing poetry to the Chicago Defender. Brooks published her first book of poetry in 1945. Titled A Street in Bronzeville, the book was a collection of poems focusing on growing up as an African American girl in Chicago. Brooks would go on to publish additional books of poetry and the novella, Maud Martha. In addition to writing, Brooks was a teacher and activist.

Brook’s poems from the children’s book Bronzeville Boys and Girls are featured in the TeachRock lesson Celebrating Community with Art and Music. In the lesson, elementary students take inspiration from Brooks and musician Chance the Rapper to write poems celebrating their own community.

John Trudell

John Trudell was born in Omaha, Nebraska to a Santee Dakota father and a Mexican mother. Before joining the U.S. Navy, Trudell lived in small towns surrounding the Santee Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. After his time in the Navy, Trudell became an activist, most famously perhaps as the spokesperson for United Indians of All Tribes’ 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island. After his pregnant wife and children died in a house fire that was caused under mysterious circumstances, Trudell turned to writing. A broadcasting major in college, Trudell was known for reciting his poems, and soon began partnering with musicians such as Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, Jesse Ed Davis, Midnight Oil, Peter Gabriel, and A Tribe Called Red to set his poetic recitations to music.

Trudell’s activism and poetry is featured in the TeachRock lesson The Music and Poetry Behind the Red Power Movement, which introduces students to the Red Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.