Linda Kleinbub
Linda Kleinbub is a mentor at Girls Write Now an organization that works with at-risk high school girls who have a passion for writing. Her work has appeared in The New York Observer, Yahoo! Beauty, Front Porch Commons, Our Town – Downtown, Statement of Record, Short, Fast and Deadly and The Best American Poetry Blog. She is also a painter and photographer.
“The Summer Institute 5.0 was a great experience. A wide variety of useful teaching methods were demonstrated in a short amount of time. Each day was well planned and the instructors were encouraging and enthusiastic.”
Here is the poem that Linda and her group wrote as part of the Day 2 activity:
Howl His Absence
Let us all put on our hoodies
and bow our heads.
Buying a can of iced tea and skittles,
mentioning the word “gun,”
deciding to ride the subway,
holding a wallet in his hand,
blood shed red
life pulse ended unexpectedly, suddenly.
Travon,
Sean,
Henry,
Amadu,
unarmed and innocent
black, afraid, gunned down.
Angry and confused
tears fall on a rainy night
for families,
a High School graduation
that will never be,
a wedding
no one will see,
the book unwritten,
a father he will never be.
Confrontations
unexplained,
let us all put on our hoodies
and bow our heads.
-Linda Kleinbub
See more about the workshops in our Summer Institute Anthology.
Interest in some Professional Development? Find out more about our Teaching Artist Training & Internship Programs here.
