Maya Angelou Poetry Slam - Throwback Post
Dr. Maya Angelou
When Maya Angelou Came to Dimock: A Compass School Memory
But what I remember most clearly is not just her presence on the stage—it was a moment centered on one of my own students.
During the ceremony, 11-year-old Yvens Germain, a student at the Compass School in Jamaica Plain, stood before the crowd and recited a poem he had written for a poetry contest sponsored by Citizens Bank. In a room full of distinguished adults, he spoke with honesty and courage, using language that could only come from a child who understood that art gives voice to experience long before adulthood does.
After he finished, something extraordinary happened.
Maya Angelou—whose words had shaped generations, whose voice carried across continents—walked toward Yvens and wrapped him in a full, heartfelt embrace. The camera captured that moment: the weight of artistic mentorship, the affirmation of a child’s voice, and the reminder that stories from urban public schools belong in the same cultural space as any national literary stage.
For our school, and for me as a young art teacher, this was one of the most powerful examples of Teaching for Artistic Behavior long before I ever had a name for it. It was proof that when we allow students to create work that grows out of their lived experience—poetry, visual art, movement, music—we are not simply teaching content. We are helping young people articulate identity, belonging, and self-understanding.
The Compass School was a deeply nurturing environment for students who were often marginalized in traditional systems. Many came from homes or neighborhoods where art was not seen as a necessity. Yet inside our classrooms, creativity was not a privilege—it was a lifeline. When we integrated poetry, visual thinking, and storytelling into the daily life of the school, students learned to understand themselves as authors, makers, and interpreters of the world around them.
Yvens’ win was a moment of recognition, but it was more than that. His poem represented the voices of children in Boston who did not always see themselves reflected in mainstream narratives of achievement. Having Maya Angelou, the daughter of the rural South, survivor, poet, civil rights advocate and acknowledge his work was deeply symbolic. It was a passing of artistic lineage: one storyteller recognizing another.
As educators, we are rarely part of moments that leave behind a historical record. That day at Dimock is one of the few times a camera captured the impact of creative teaching inside an urban public school. But far more important than the photograph is the truth behind it: when students are given the chance to create authentic art, their voices matter on local stages, community stages, and national stages.
I look back on that day with gratitude—not only for Maya Angelou’s presence, but for what she validated: the work happening in classrooms like ours, the commitment to arts equity, and the importance of inviting young people to speak their world into existence.
The arts remind us that greatness begins with permission—the permission to question, to imagine, to express, and to belong. Yvens wasn’t simply a student who won a contest. He was a young poet who reminded all of us that talent is everywhere, waiting for the right conditions to grow.
He found those conditions inside our classroom.
And Maya Angelou recognized it.
BOSTON, MA - MAY 1,1997
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