Alora and Patience get tweaky with an echoey, speckly, technical sound--lots of fun Garageband delays with the effects of haunting lyrics.

Alora's "Herein" is about looking at life in another perspective, and Patience's "Tears of a God" is about how evil it is to rhyme, or something like that.

Thank you for joining Gage Park High School's coolest gals on the block!

This short story alludes to Edgar Allen Poe, the Ghost Dance, popular dance music, and pop culture.  It is the creative writing teacher's example of a short story incorporating references to dance as it reflects the inner struggle of a young Native American man tempted to lose his soul for popularity in a club setting.  Peer pressure at its peak lands him in a dance-off with the head ghost at the Place to Be where some go in and never come out.  Students wrote their own stories incorporating allusions to popular music as it would affect mood, setting, dialogue, and theme.

Toni Roni . . . or is that Toni and Ronny?  This episode's ChiTown poet shares romantic poetry as well as a few of her favorite things.

Congratulations to Toni on graduating with the Class of 2007!

Daniel, the Pluto of the Class, speaks of gloomy moons and cloudy tunes.  If you at all relate to the rather saturnine and dark, you'll find refreshment in our Eeyore's verses.

Conterpart reads a rearrangement of "Crazy Jay Blue" by ee cummings.  He cut out a list of all the words and typographic symbols in the original and formed phrases.  This word study resulted in recognition of the poet's word choice and odd word order.  Conterpart also shares a list poem about a few of his favorite things.

Strawberry gives new depth and maturity to Strawberry Shortcake, the popular icon of girlhood.

Congratulations to Paradise on graduating with the Class of 2007!  Paradise shares some of her poetry about the ups and downs of romance.

Raul shares from his blog, Cosmo's Diary.  Raul is also a bass guitarist and music lover.  Congratulations on graduation, Raul!

Angie takes some crunchy cliches and remixes them in a contemporary situation.  Old sayings find new life.

Sergio has this thing about garbage and the word WHY:  perhaps a cynical outlook?  His imitation of ee cummings' "Buffalo Bill" shows his poetic side.

Yulando and Patience on guitar and vocals with a song from their developing album SoBo (short for songbook).

Tellin it like it is, 50 twizzles a few of his favorite things including a list poem, an ee cummings imitation, Fresh Air Ones, Dwayne Wade, and teen words from the teen world.

NT slams a few verses of her own style.

Just Patience brings on a battery of ee cummings imitations.  The original, "Buffalo Bill," is as follows:

Buffalo Bill's

defunct

who used to ride a water smooth-silver

stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons just like that

Jesus

he was a handsome man

and what I want to know is

how do you like your blue-eyed boy

Mr. Death

Featured poet Jamal from the Class of 2007, about to graduate from Gage Park High School on Chicago's South Side!

The ChiTown Poets Podcast features the works of creative writing students from Gage Park High School on Chicago's South Side.  Marvell composed the introductory song.  Yulando and Patience, with their teacher, Adam Papadolias, composed and recorded the outro.  The featured poet of the first-ever episode is April.