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An ICHV Insights column about Student Voices Contest winner Gabrielle Onyema and her awarding winning work.
(June 25th, 2009)
Two friends — young women, maybe 14 or 15 years old — are walking down Catalpa Street in Chicago. We learn that one of their brothers has been using, and selling drugs.
Suddenly gunshots are fired from a car.
One of the girls, Ciara, is shot and killed. The other, who is unnamed, tries to come to terms with the shocking reality of what has just happened.
The scene could be something out of any number of shootings that have taken the lives of young people in the last year. It is, however, a scene that is part of “Guns are Grim,” a poem that won its young author an award at the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence’s 14th Annual Student Voices contest earlier this year.
The poem’s author, Gabrielle Onyema, will be an eighth grader this fall at Farnsworth Elementary School on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
The vision of gun violence expressed in the poem is not about gun laws or statistics. It is about the raw emotion felt by someone in the middle of a gun-related tragedy.
The poem’s narrator says at one point:
My friendship, shattered.
My mind, scarred.
My friend gone.
I had been hit hard.
“I felt maybe people could see inside of the tragedy,” says Gabrielle. “I tried to do that by showing two people who were close to each other.”
Gabrielle says she has not run into any problems related to violence in the Edgebrook community where she lives. When she was younger and lived in the Gresham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, though, she did come across violence.
Gabrielle’s mother, Crystal Carter — who is a Chicago police officer — says that when the family lived in the city’s Auburn-Gresham community there was a triple homicide in front of a neighbor’s house. “The message I took from that tragedy was the same that Gabrielle expressed in her poem,” she says. “Guns affect everybody, the entire community — whether you are talking about a relative, a neighbor, or someone in law enforcement.”
Telling the Story
Gabrielle is a student who likes writing stories and says her writing “edges toward fantasy or science fiction.” In this case, however, she penned a more realistic story that begins with a simple scene of friends hanging out — and ends with the author wondering how, and why, an innocent person can lose their life to gun violence.
She writes in the poem:
How can we stand here and let innocent blood be shed?
How long can we let this happen to those who did nothing to receive it?
Would you do that for drugs?
For revenge?
Out of anger?
Gabrielle adds that writing a poem was a different experience for her than writing a story. “A poem is kind of like a magnifying glass,” she says. “The smaller you make the ray of light, the more intense the heat is.”
“I just pretty much wanted to show the mental shock of this experience, and question a world in which this could happen,” adds Gabrielle. “I also don’t think it’s all about the blood and guts when someone you are close to is hurt.”
Role of Youth
Gabrielle says the ICHV contest gives kids a chance to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences on an important issue.
“Maybe adults can see things in a different way if they understand a young person’s point of view,” she says. “They can learn from what kids say about how disastrous gun violence can be, and how people should not use guns for the wrong reasons.”
Meanwhile, Crystal Carter says she was “amazed” by her daughter’s poem. “I think,” she says, “adults will be surprised at how well kids can articulate what they think and feel about this issue.”
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