Editor's Note: The last issue of Field Notes included a call for student writing. We are delighted that Tzivia Gover, poetry instructor at The Care Center in Holyoke, submitted some of her students' work. We are including some of the students' work in this issue and will publish the rest in the winter issue. Many thanks to Tzivia for bringing us student voices. The Care Center is a program for pregnant and parenting teens who are studying for their GEDs. In addition to academic subjects learners participate in athletics, theater, art, poetry, and computer studies, among others. Every Wednesday morning the pre-GED class at The Care Center in works with poetry instructor, Tzivia Gover. Together they read a poem and discuss it, then write poems of their own inspired by the form and/or content of what they read together.

Recently, we read Julia Alverez's poem Bilingual Sestina out loud, then discussed it. We focused on the first two stanzas. Discussion questions included:

• How do you feel when you've been hearing English all day, then walk into a room where everyone is speaking Spanish?
• If English were a food, what would it taste like?
• If Spanish were a sound, what sound would it be?

After brainstorming and discussing, we settled down to write. Most of the students in the class are Latina, but all of us were able to relate to different aspects of the poem, regardless of our backgrounds. These poems are examples of what we discovered about ourselves, our cultures, and our languages through poetry.

Tzivia Gover teaches poetry and creative writing at The Care Center in Holyoke, and works as a freelance writing consultant for adult basic education sites and other nontraditional educational settings. She is also a professional writer and author. She can be reached at: tz11@aol.com

An excerpt from Bilingual Sestina
By Julia Alverez*

Some things I have to say aren't getting said
in this snowy, blue-eyed, gum-chewing
    English,
dawn's early light sifting through the persianas closed
the night before by dark-skinned girls whose words
evoke cama, aposento, sueños in nombres
from that first word I can't translate from Spanish.

Gladys, Rosario, Altagracia—the sounds of Spanish
wash over me like warm island waves as I say
your soothing names: a child again learning the
    nombres
of things you point to in the world before English
turned sol, tierra, cielo, luna to vocabulary words—
sun, earth, sky, moon—language closed. . .

* The complete poem can be found in A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women, Finch.(ed.) Ashland, OR: Story Line Press, 1994.

The following authors are offering poems they wrote after reading Julias Alverez's poem, Bilingual Sestina. In response, they wrote about their feelings about Spanish and English. The students are all teen mothers or mothers-to-be. All are in the Pre-GED class at the Care Center in Holyoke.

The Sound of Spanish
By Christina Ayala

The sound of Spanish to me is
like my family reunion.
All that happiness and the
music in the room. The taste
like quenepas sweet or sour or
peril con arroz con gandules that
go down real
smooth. That's my language.

The sound of Spanish
when you go to the beach and you
feel the heat and that beat
that's the way I like it to be.

The Sounds Of...
By Kathy Krstyen

The sound of English to
me is bland like the snowy
white skin of white people. It
is also beautiful like their blue
eyes. The sound of Spanish
to me is soothing like the
sound of the ocean. It is
also warm like the sun
shining down. English is
good like the taste of French
fries. Spanish is beautiful
like Puerto Rico. English is
calm like the motionless music.
Spanish is exciting like the
rhythm of Spanish music.

Bilingual Poem
By Vanessa Rodriguez

The sound of English to me is strong like a shark's jaw. It won't easily let you go.
The taste of it is like shrimps and oysters that rich people eat.
The touch is rough and hard like a rock sitting on the cement road.
It's important like the president and royal like the Queen of England.

The sound of Spanish is loud like the salsa music my sister hears.
The taste of it is like rice and beans my mother cooks.
The touch of Spanish is smooth like the desk I'm writing on.
It's fun like the huge roller coaster in Six Flags.