In January, award-winning poet Malachi Byrd brought Martin Luther King’s legacy to life with a mini-residency focused on collective poetry-writing. In their poem “Dreaming of Home,” Civic Circe students in Montgomery Housing Partnership’s Community Life program wrote about their countries of origin, including El Salvador and Honduras (“land of beaches”), and their hopes for the future. Here is an excerpt:
I have a dream
That we all have homes
That there will be no refugee camps, and everyone has shelter
I have a dream
That there will never be a war
So we can enjoy peace
I have a dream
That there will be no cancer
And everyone will live long under the sun …
I have a dream
That we will grow like a plant,
Act, lead and speak up for those who can’t
Students wrote their poem in their Civic Notebooks, and created a video of themselves reciting it to share with senior citizens in a collaboration with the Gaithersburg Beloved Community Initiative.