Empower Ourselves: Now booking workshops for your school or organization



I wrote this poem while sitting in a cubicle job that was killing my creative spirit. Through that experience, I became committed to focusing on my art as full time employment. Check out the video and book me for your classroom. I have worked for over 10 years as a teaching artist and program coordinator for Chicago Public Schools. I have extensive experience in arts integration, literacy, poetry, theater and social justice. Email me at ladyterroreducation@gmail.com for rates and dates for your unique and collaborative workshops that will awaken your students to the beauty of words and their own creative power.

Call to Empowerment

When I was in Peace Corps back in the day I worked in Morocco, North Africa. It was a wonderful, stressful and life changing experience. One of my vivid memories from the experience is the Call to Prayer that blasted throughout the streets on a loud speaker. Aside from the beautiful Arabic singing, I also loved how it mobilized entire communities to stop any activity to pray and meditate.

I think it would be a great idea to have a "call to empowerment" in communities all over the country. Maybe a poem, positive quotation or meditation could be read or sang from rooftops on loud speakers all over the hood. Five times a day we could use sound and words to heal ourselves and to empower and uplift.

My work as lady Terror is one of creative empowerment and an experiment in guerilla art, spectacle and performance art. My latest stunt was the releasing of balloons with a poem tied to it. My hope is that someone will find the balloon, untie the poem, read it and be inspired. It's also symbolic of a lesson that I re-learn daily: You must let things go in order to receive. The more you give with purpose, the closer you get to living out your life's purpose. Life is beautiful but also rough sometimes. I believe deeply that poetry and words are therapy.

Enjoy the footage from the stunt filmed last week and my original poem "The Cubicle Project," whch was written at a call center, cubicle job that attempted to kill my creative joy. Pain can bring art sometimes. What poem or quotation would you want to release into the air as a gift or have blasted on loud speakers in your hood?



If you enjoy my mission please think about bringing me to your school or organization for a Creative Empowerment Workshop or to create a theater project. Lets build!

Social Justice starts early!

I just finished a 13 week arts residency at Crown Community Academy. I was collaborating with my favorite poet friend, Amanda Lichtenstein and Luke Albrecht, the 8th grade math teacher. During this arts integration program, we collaborated to create curriculum that blends math and writing. The 8th graders studied the math concept of statistics, averages and graphing while writing rants and exploring the concept of social justice. I had the opportunity to present the questions, "What are you mad about? What is worth getting mad at? What is civil rights?"

The young poets wrote about violence, single parent homes, Haiti, guns, family and used a bullhorn and soapbox to perform rants. The final class was filled with a poetry performance filled with poems that included statistics and percentages to fuel the rant. Our final performance project was a poetry marathon on report card pick up day. While the school was filled with parents, students and guests, the 8th graders took over the hallway and read poetry on a bullhorn for 2 hours straight. The concept: poetry is therapy and the very act of hearing poetry read aloud can be healing to the listener. The Westside community where the school is located needs healing. Chicago youth need healing from the violence. So we will bring the words to them. We read selected poems from Ruth Forman, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Tupac Shakur, Lucille Clifton, Maya Angelou and they also read their own original rants.

The principal and two teachers also got involved and caught the poetry spirit. Dr. Jackson, the principal, read a powerful piece about black men after hearing us read. The students were so proud, fearless and amazing. They read for the whole two hours and probably would have read for 2 more hours if asked. Social justice can start very early. You don't need to wait until they are in senior year of high school to introduce the concept of community service and social justice work. We must start early.