It’s been a busy spring semester at Shortridge for the Butler mentors enrolled in the Writing In The Schools course this spring. Besides welcoming poet Major Jackson with open arms and working towards the publication of our second Exclusive Ink literary magazine, our curriculum has expanded to include a partnership with the SHS football team, where several new students have been joining us regularly for homework help.

So far, the new Writing In The Schools class has been up to every task, enabling us to continue expanding our outreach. Here are some of their initial reflections after a full month at Shortridge.

Laura Fernandez: Yesterday was pretty awesome. I was having a really tough day, and I left Shortridge smiling. Thursday was a nice break from writing that allowed us to connect as a group instead of on an individual basis.

Dorene Hinton: I’m glad we now have a system put in place to help the football players and the Exclusive Ink writers, so they both can improve over the course of the semester. Although I was nervous working with some new faces, but the football players understood my explanations and made sense of it. How exciting!

Katee Rice: I was having a difficult time at the beginning of the class working with E– and B– because they were both very independent and didn’t really want much help with the exercise. However, after E– finished writing, he allowed me to help him add some more to his poem and to add more of his own voice to it. I think he stepped out of his shell a little bit. I was glad I got to help him in some way, and I’m glad he was able to open up to me.

Gerry Justice: Recently, I was paired up with J – again. J– is a serious fellow who loves to write. He loves to create. He’s a thinker. He’ll spend a good part of the time looking up at the ceiling, pondering big thoughts.

J– came to class wanting to work on his “Green Light” story, about a guy at a laundromat who buys a special green drink from the vending machine. I told him it sounded like a Stephen King story. I suggested that he try writing a poem based on “Green Light.” He hesitated, but with a little reinforcement, J–  finished a 17-line poem.

Visiting poet Major Jackson stands tall with Exclusive Ink on Tuesday, Feb. 5.

In a mere hour and a half at Shortridge, award-winning poet Major Jackson managed to inspire.

No two writers are alike, so it’s impossible to know exactly what to expect when someone comes to town as part of Butler’s Visiting Writers Series. Some writers are great speakers. Others are naturally more introverted. Some prefer a laid-back atmosphere. Others are more comfortable in an academic setting.

As mentors, we were all rather excited about the prospect of such an accomplished poet working closely with our Exclusive Ink group at Shortridge. For weeks, we hyped his visit by reading to our students from two of Major’s collections, Leaving Saturn and Holding Company, even having them mimic his style during one of our writing exercises. We figured Major Jackson would deliver, but his visit exceeded our wildest expectations.

When Major walked into Room 238, he introduced himself to everyone there – the Butler mentors, our Exclusive Ink crew, and even members of the SHS football team who have been coming to us for tutoring. Before Doug and Chris even got the opportunity to announce his arrival, the prolific poet had already won the trust of the Shortridge students, who were ready to hang on his every word when he finally got up to speak.

Major reads from Leaving Saturn, explaining the stories behind the poems.

Major was articulate and genuine when he spoke, and he provided context for his poems before and after he read them. The students were totally captivated by his performance and his storytelling ability. We all were really. What was most encouraging to us was the level of engagement the students had with the material. They seemed willing to listen to Major talk for hours, to hear even more details about Steve and his imaginary cars and the barbershop legends from his neighborhood.

Zuri shares her work with the visiting poet.

When we took a break to let Major see how Exclusive Ink works on a normal afternoon, many of the students gathered around the poet, looking share their poems with him. He seemed to love it, and the students did, too. It was truly inspiring to see the relationship between poets starting to take shape after literally minutes of knowing each other.

We wanted to capitalize on the energy and let the students read some of their best pieces before Major had to leave. They delivered as always, but many held their heads noticeably higher and enunciated their words with more pride. After all, a famous poet had just told them that their work was awesome. Major seemed as enthralled with their readings as they were with his, as he ended up recording some of the students on his iPhone.

Major takes video of a memorable Exclusive Ink performance before hitting the road.

Never was the power of the moment more evident than when Doug, Chris, and Major were about to walk out the door to go to the airport, and one of our Exclusive Ink regulars said, “I went through a period of not writing recently, but since you came, I’m going to start writing again.”

So far the student has delivered. Just as Major Jackson did.

A parting shot with this semester’s Butler mentors. Thanks for a great afternoon, Major!

Contributed by Luke Wortley. Photos from Gerry Justice.

After a some time away for the holidays, it’s been exciting to resume Exclusive Ink for the spring semester. During our first few sessions this term, we’ve been fortunate enough to still see our regulars almost every day, even if they’re only popping in to grab a sandwich or say hello before practice.

Another encouraging thing is that there have been some new students who are eager to participate. During our second week back, I worked a new student, K–. He’s kind of an imposing guy and an athlete, so I didn’t know what to expect. Sometimes it takes a few sessions before new students start to open up and become active participants.

The exercise that Doug had prepared was “Writing a Manifesto”, which was an ambitious exercise that I worried might be slightly intimidating for a new student to take on. But to my surprise, K– jumped right in, contributing some really candid, profound, and downright impressive output explaining his writing process.

It was cool to see K– talking about his process of writing poetry, describing his rhymes as “flowing down a river” and writer’s block as “rough patches, even rocks” in your path as you swim. I was blown away by many of his insights. I remember quite distinctly his reasoning for having to have a title before he begins his poems. He said, “Writing a poem and giving it a title later is like having a child for ten whole years and then deciding to name it.” We both had a good laugh at that one, and we dealt with more than just writing; we came to understand each other a little more.

However, the biggest surprise came when he stood up to share his work. After he shared some of the things we talked about, he went completely off-script. Here’s the gist of what he said:

“I like to write in the moment, because there are so many thoughts in my mind. But, sometimes, I do like to get some distance from it because all those thoughts get scrambled – like eggs. You know, when you have a plate of eggs, and there’s just so much on the plate, but there’s that one really awesome cheesy piece next to the hash browns? That’s what I mean when I need to get some distance from it sometimes. Writing in the moment is good to get ideas down, whatever words I might need to use at some point, but when I get some distance, maybe at the end of the day or even days down the road, I can pick out what I really want to write about – that delicious little cheesy piece left on the plate.”

Contributed by Luke Wortley

For members of Exclusive Ink, Room 238 is like a gym for all of us where we put in the extra hours of practice and hone our academic skills. In this way, we’re sort of team of writers, with the mentors serving as coaches.

As with any new team, even some returning members have some growing pains and an adjustment period, some come in as renewed superstars, some first-year players blow you away with their raw talent that has yet to be controlled and channeled for effective use. Some coaches click with certain players better than others. When you come together as a team and stay motivated towards the same goal, the results can be pretty astounding.

One of the best examples of growth in one of our writers I’ve seen is in S––. When I first worked with S––, it was hard to get him to say much more than two or three words at a time, much less write an entire poem on a page. And it would be the absolute end of the world to ask him to get up in front of everyone and read what he wrote. I felt bad that even his friends were giving him flak.

I didn’t work with S–– the next week, but Allyson did. She said that she noticed some marked improvement from the week before and even got him to write a paragraph, which made us mentors happy. We all knew that if he could just put something on the page, it would hopefully free up his mind a little.

However, the next session I had with him, he was timid again, almost to the point of being withdrawn. He didn’t write a word.

The following week, Doug and I ran a group exercise where we wrote a poem one word at a time. S–– was in our group. In this exercise, he was not only forced to write something, but he could contribute to the whole group project in a small, but noticeable way. The exercise was a resounding success. After struggling for the first few minutes, soon he was giving us words with more and more confidence. By the end, it was hard to get him to stop blurting out words, even when it was someone else’s turn. He was so taken with the exercise that he even offered to read the finished product. We were finally to move S–– past his concerns about “not being right” or “sounding dumb” and put some words down without worry.

The momentum continued. Not only did S–– volunteer to help lead the next week’s exercise within his group, he read again. We’ve seen him stand up for himself more often and be more assertive. Instead of putting his head down with his hood up when we ask for someone to help us out, he will contribute. And, perhaps what’s most astounding, he continues to write.

Contributed by Luke Wortley 

Having just moved to Indianapolis weeks before, I had never even heard of Shortridge and had no idea what to expect when I walked in the door. I immediately saw the signs for our creative writing group, Exclusive Ink. Great, I thought to myself, as if I weren’t nervous already. Thankfully, as it turns out, the group is anything but exclusive.

The group, in just six weeks this semester, has become remarkably close. Even the mentors from last year have made a note that the atmosphere is tight-knit. Like I said, it can be intimidating at first, as a new member of the program. I remember the embarrassment of having to ask for everyone’s name multiple times on the first day.

The kids did eventually forgive me for not knowing their names and now we talk about daily life, we try to solve the world’s problems, we write.

Recently, we did an exercise where we wrote a poem, story, or letter to our past or future selves. It was an incredibly moving experience––there was no reservation, no exclusivity. Everyone shared. I was amazed at how open the students were. It moved me so much because the first-time mentors had no pre-existing relationship with the students other than the last few weeks in room 238. Despite all this, I feel like I’ve not only been accepted as a member of the group, but I would say that I’ve made friends there. It’s not all about helping out with an exercise. It’s about what you learn while doing it.

The name of this group, Exclusive Ink, is a little deceptive. My background is different from most of the students at Shortridge, but I feel like I’ve been coming to the group for years and it’s not just because of the personalities of my fellow mentors–– it’s because Exclusive Ink has an energy that promotes inclusiveness and acceptance.

Contributed by Luke Wortley