POETS SPEAK THEIR PEACE.Byline: Jeff Wright Jeff Wright can refer to:
Peace rocks. And slams, too. Students in Jefferson Middle School's Peace Club demonstrated their knack for promoting peace through art, poetry and the spine-tingling sounds of electrified guitar at Wednesday's second annual peace symposium. About 35 students belong to the club, first organized after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Among the club's founders were Nik Hawley-Gamer, now a high school freshman who returned to Jefferson as frontman front·man n. 1. also front man A man who serves as a nominal leader but who lacks real authority. 2. Music A leading singer with a group. for a peace-loving band called The Barrowites. "We all have very strong feelings about peace," said Hawley-Gamer, who performed a song he wrote last year about the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. going to war in Iraq. "But we also just want to play some high-energy rock 'n' roll rock 'n' roll: see rock music. ." Students with different views on the merits on the merits adj. referring to a judgment, decision or ruling of a court based upon the facts presented in evidence and the law applied to that evidence. A judge decides a case "on the merits" when he/she bases the decision on the fundamental issues and considers of the Iraq war and President Bush's policies were invited to take part in this year's symposium, but none did so, teacher and club supporter Roscoe Caron said. "The nation has conflicted feelings about all this, and so do the kids and staff here," he said. "We're just a cross-section." Down the hallway from the rock band performance, Cassie Sorensen and two other visiting wordsmiths regaled students with a poetry slam. Sorensen and fellow slammer A worm that caused a billion dollars worth of damage on the Internet on January 25, 2003. Slammer infected computers all over the Internet by generating random IP addresses and causing the computer's buffer to overflow with its own instructions that replicate itself and start the process Jarrett Arnold drew a connection between the small violence that people can feel in their daily lives and the larger violence of war. "That's why I like poetry so much," Sorensen said. "When one of my friends back-stabbed me, I was totally angry and mad. So I decided to put it into a poem, and then it was just gone." Arnold, with 9-month-old daughter Shashi on his chest in a sling, offered a poem called "X-Man" that ended like this: "Without understanding, it don't matter what you say Make the world a safe place where my children can play The answer is not tomorrow, it's today" Arnold then gave way to Lafa Taylor, a Jefferson alum who wowed the middle-schoolers with a rap poem called "Crazy World." With a machine called a looper looper, name for caterpillars that move with a looping motion, including the inchworm and the cabbage looper. looper or cankerworm or inchworm , Taylor used the percussionlike sounds of his own voice to first lay down a rhythmic back beat for his spoken song, which concluded with the mantra, "It's all about peace." Arnold and Taylor then improvised for some "free-styling" wordplay - with Arnold at one point apologizing in midrap when a swear word slipped out. "Oops, I'm free-styling, that was a mistake," he chanted, not missing a beat. The mood was more somber in an adjacent classroom where Sheila Lowe and five other war veterans recounted their military experiences. Lowe, a U.S. Marine during the Korean War Korean War, conflict between Communist and non-Communist forces in Korea from June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953. At the end of World War II, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet (North Korean) and U.S. (South Korean) zones of occupation. era, offered a sharp critique of the current war in Iraq after reading a dictionary's definition of "peace." "Is that what's going on What's Going On is a record by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. Released on May 21, 1971 (see 1971 in music), What's Going On reflected the beginning of a new trend in soul music. today?" she asked the students. "We went in there for the wrong reasons, if you ask me. How are you supposed to set up a democracy there when we're killing them and destroying their homes?" Other guest speakers talked about military recruitment and the financial drain of war. At a concluding assembly, peace club members read aloud the names of Iraqi children and U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraq war - concluding with the name of Marist High School graduate Chase Whitham, who died this month by electrocution electrocution Method of execution in which the condemned person is subjected to a heavy charge of electric current. The prisoner is shackled into a wired chair, and electrodes are fastened to the head and one leg so that the current will flow through the body. in a noncombat accident. The assembly concluded with the unveiling of a "peace pole" made by peace club students under the supervision of community artist Lucy McIver. The pole, consisting of ceramic messages and symbols of peace, will be "planted" in a school courtyard. CAPTION(S): Nine-month-old Shashi Arnold is just along for the ride as her father, Jarrett Arnold, and Lafa Taylor rap Wednesday at Jefferson Middle School Jefferson Middle School is a middle school located in Jefferson City, Tennessee. The middle school is home to the football team the Elks, which has won more conference champs than any other middle school in Tennessee. . The poetry performance was part of the school's peace symposium. |
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