The Poem is Telling Me I Remember
Poems from Creative Growth Art Center
Edited by Lorraine Lupo
Poetry Must Go On!
Open the book and read the first page
Firecrackers!
Dogs go crazy when it goes pow pow
Dogs are wagging and chasing their tails
A group of people are writing a poem together
A page by page collage, and each time you turn a page it’s a whole new experience
A circular spaceship of the book takes you everywhere
Blast off! The book is like a rocket
This is the best book for you to buy, this is the perfect one
It’s like opening a gate
C’mon on in!
The book is far far away in the galaxy of lights, camera and action
You’re kicking things up a notch in space
It’s going to be epic
56 pages
7 x 8.5 inches
Paperback, Perfect Bound
Full Color, Digital
Edition of 500
SOLD OUT
The result of Creative Growth’s first poetry program, The Poem is Telling Me I Remember is a chapbook that features poems collectively composed by Creative Growth artists during 2019–20. The poetry program consists of unique collaborative writing workshops facilitated by poet-in-residence Lorraine Lupo and guest poet Kostas Anagnopoulos. Poems featured in the book are beautifully illustrated with art from the Creative Growth Studio. Proceeds from sales of the book benefit the program.
Creative Growth is a non-profit organization that serves artists with developmental disabilities by providing a professional studio environment for artistic development, gallery exhibition, and representation. The Creative Growth studio in downtown Oakland, California is home to over 140 artists working in a variety of media. Founded in 1974, Creative Growth is a leader in the field of arts and disabilities, establishing a model for a creative community guided by the principle that art is fundamental to human expression and that all people are entitled to its tools of communication.
Contributors: Juan Aguilera, Joseph Alef, Avery Babon, Todd Blair, Chris Corr-Barberis, Lauren Dare, Heather Edgar, D’Lisa Fort, Sher-ron Freeman, Jorge Gomez, Mayra Gonzalez, Matthew Hatae, Bruce Howell, Nathaniel Jackson, Cedric Johnson, Gail Lewis, Larry Randolph, Elizabeth Rangel, Jessica Rodriguez, William Scott, Dinah Shapiro, Joe Spears, Nicole Storm, Julie S., Tanisha Warren, Kathy Zhong.
Artwork by: Rickie Algarva, Terri Bowden, Kim Clark, Carlos Fernandez, Jorge Gomez, Jason Jackson, Susan Janow, Jane Kassner, Paulino Martin, Aurie Ramirez, Larry Randolph, Peter Salsman, William Scott, Dinah Shapiro, Julie S., Ron Veasey, Edwin Zalenski, Ying Ge Zhou.
For media inquiries, contact megan@creativegrowth.org.
Jupiter Time
It’s Friday! It’s Friday!
Rainbows and stars
Moving stars
Moving sparkles
Like a move around
A cloud that moves around for a while
Then the stars go back to their sections
And when the storm clouds break away
And the sun shines through
The different colors
Like Jupiter
In different colors
Like purple rain
And turquoise green like Jupiter
It’s Friday
Like Jupiter time
A Dreamy Home
Where are your hopes and dreams?
Sarah Sanderson, from Hocus Pocus, would live in my dream home
I would like to be fun and spunky just like Sarah Sanderson, herself
Could I be shy like Mary Sanderson, or chic and wear expensive clothing like Winifred?
I can’t fly on a broom, or boil a large cauldron
I would never be cruel, or to cast an evil spell
I don’t have strange powers
I practice kindness, self-compassion, do some composting and try to recycle
That would be my possible dream home
Disasters
Disasters are not interesting
Not the day I broke my ankle
It started to rain
I stepped on a manhole cover
It knocked me out silly
I didn’t want to feel it at all
I have a whole new ankle when the weather goes
I get arthritis and it’s funky
It gives me a real hard time when the rain goes
And that’s a real true story
Moving’ On!
My uncle has dementia
He forgets who he is
I tell him who he is and he tries to remember
The poem is telling me I remember
The poetry makes wholesome encounters to bring people’s lives back
It builds a wholesome spaceship
What could we do to make us a family?
I will show the pictures of the family
I’ll ask them what their name is
Sometimes I forget about myself
Good thinking
Let yourself go alone
Poem Tree
I see bulldozers and backhoes
I hear fire trucks and ducks and birds and a waterfall
Orange trucks, white trucks
In my house the wind is windy
The plants, the flowers are moving
Nature of life
When I walk outside a new path is born
I have fruit trees
I have lots of lemons and apples and avocados
They’re very good to eat
I have cactus fruit
The avocado’s flowers are yellow
Every time I get a box of lemons I feel like the luckiest guy in the world
The plums are just starting to change color
Green to purple but it’s going to take awhile
I Remember
I remember a woman in Safeway who lost her child. She was looking for her, shouting, “Cholita!”
I remember the first time I saw Soul Train. It was so exciting. The dancing was amazing, the clothing was amazing. I wanted to grow up and be on Soul Train.
I remember eating ice cream with my little brother.
My uncle came to my birthday party and took me to a spot I didn’t want to be at. A spot in Oakland around the gas station. He took me to see the real deal where everybody hangs out. I didn’t like that spot. I was kinda scared.
I used to rip up every magazine and book you could ever believe. Nothing left for the new generation.
I remember rain in Florida that was warm like a shower.
I heard voices telling me what to do when I was little. The voices told me things that weren’t real. They told me stuff to get me in trouble.
I used to talk to my plants. I still do.
I flushed down a goldfish. My only pet. I called it Goldie Gold. We won it in a pinball game.
I used to go to the beach with my grandmother, my mother and sister. I remember the waves.
I remember I used to get lost in the malls and Disneyland.
I remember once my mother did my hair. She got it all nice and went away and when she came back there was all this hair grease in my hair. She said, “How did you get all that hair grease in your hair!”
I don’t know why I’m afraid of lightning. I’m a lightning rod. I got struck by lightning and my shoe came off and hit a police car. Talk about hearing a scream, the screech of two cats and a dog. We ran into a closet. I don’t know how we all fit into that closet.
I remember the Loma Prieta earthquake. I watched the ground ripple like waves.
Tuesday, October 17, 1989. I was waiting for the bus. I had red shorts on in those days. It was a tough shake.
I remember when somebody loved me a lot.
I remember when I was a baby. I had a flashback from my babyhood – my cousin thought I looked like a baby doll.
I remember when Tickles, she’s a mother dog, she’s a miniature dachshund, she had puppies in my bed. Her water broke in the middle of the night. She looked so sad but I told her it was ok. I slept on the couch so she could have my whole bed. I remember my father told me we had three puppies.
I remember in my past. I try and remember. I can’t remember without his name.
I remember back in the year 1999. At Laney College I remember I signed up in the weight class and the aerobics class and the swimming. When I started for the first time, my whole body felt nervous for the class I was taking. I was so nervous about that for the aerobics and the swimming pool. I’ll tell you some more later on what I felt nervous in.
I remember when baby chickens went to my head and made a nest and went to sleep in there. I told them not to poop on my head or I’d make him lunch.
I remember when I was going on a cruise and it was really fun. There was swimming, shuffle board, all you can eat, miniature golf, a pool table, a place where adults could drop off their teens. There was a bar and much more.
I remember the cat ate my rabbit.
I remember swimming.
I remember for Christmas my brother got me a snake but instead it was a garden hose. He tricked me.
I remember when I was a little girl I hung a snake on my neighbor Shirley’s door because she was telling on me.
I remember the first time I joined wheelchair basketball.
I remember my cousin did the same thing that Lizzie’s brother did. He thought he could scare me with a spider or a snake. It backfired. He’s a nut.
I remember when me and brother were playing hide and seek and he was hiding in the hamper and he jumped out and scared me and I fell back and hurt myself and I still have the scar.
I remember when I was little sorting out the dirty clothes and watching Wonder Woman and I heard a real loud thunder that you wouldn’t believe. I threw all the dirty clothes up in the air. It was like God was saying, turn that off!
I remember I liked to play with Cherry, Sophie and Coco.
I remember when I protected myself with imaginary stuff against people of Dixie.
Now I remember way back in the day, back in time, the way early year 1971. Back in that time I was at my grandmother’s birthday surprise party, this was the day before the 4th of July, it was July 3rd. My cousin lit a firecracker and threw it up towards the streetlight and the light blacked out for a minute then the light came back on. We were teenagers at that time, and I laughed about that. I was about 15 years old. He was about 17 years old when he popped a firecracker towards the streetlight. Something inside me told me not to do it so I didn’t do what he did. My cousin, he was crazy at that time but I sure wasn’t bout to do what he did, no way.
I remember one day one night and the other time – my brother like to dress like a man in my sister’s bedroom. And my sister went into the room, she scream. She thought he was a man in my sister’s bedroom. I put on a black leather jacket and made a paper mask. Boy she screamed so loud. That one was in the 1970s. That one night, I was tickled about that.
I remember my dad was teaching my how to say my prayers and I asked for a brother or a sister. I found out that I was going to be a big sister and my little sister was born on November 6, 1970. That was the happiest day in my life until I got the chicken pox. She was my biggest inspiration.
I remember playing hide and seek with my brother and I was in a garbage can. He had the shovel and the rake and he had a bunch of leaves in the garbage. He was surprised I was in the garbage can.
In my family I’m the sneaky one in my family. My mom has a big closet and my family went crazy looking for me. I was a bundle of sneaky in my family.
I remember this thing that we use to say as a little girl:
Bubble bubble gum bubble gum in the shoe
How many pieces do you want
How many bubble gums do you have
I remember the one on the train:
Engine engine number 9
Train going down the line
I remember when I was a member.
One thing I remember back in the day 1983 we went to San Francisco to the planetarium and they had alll kind of snakes. One snake was growing into a two headed snake. The snake was growing another head, right into a two-headed snake.
The snake takes off his skin.
I remember I told my aunt to keep the front door closed because she’ll be inviting something in and so she didn’t listen to me and she left the front door open and invited a garden snake in the house and I had to rescue my aunt from the mean garden snake.
I remember making a bubble gum machine in clay.
Sometimes I’m afraid the skin on my hands will get dry like a snake.
I remember getting wet from a water hose. It was between me and my brother and we got wet with the hose.
I had a roommate once who brought me into her room to show me her new pet. It was a 12-foot boa constrictor. It was a memorable experience. I did pet it.
Was the two-headed snake made in a lab?
I can’t remember now.
