Jose Hollaway, now band director at McClellan Magnet High School in Little Rock, is another graduate of one of Oliver’s programs.
“I am proud to be from a single parent household. My mom was always looking for something for me to be involved in that had black male role models,” Holloway said.
He was 11 and a trumpet player. He didn’t have a reading problem, but Say It Loud! opened up his world, he said.
“I gained exposure to the culture, learned to think positively. We took a lot of trips, saw a lot of stuff. We learned the importance of the arts and how to collaborate. It was so encouraging. Suddenly, it didn’t seem out of reach to go off to college or do things like that.”
Oliver’s work is featured in a new book published by The Poetry Foundation called Open the Door and now he gets calls from people all over the country who want him to start programs for them. “I explain I help communities and schools and other organizations develop programs themselves,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Little Rock, he hosts “Literary Nation Talk Radio” a live weekly broadcast with nationally known guests. He has also published, Turn the Page and You Don’t Stop: Sharing Successful Chapters in Our Lives with Youth, an anthology of noted writers testifying to how writing and reading has impacted their lives. On September 21, he will co-host the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual legislative conference’s author’s pavilion.
But Oliver is on a mission. “As this country shifts from factories to technological entrepreneurship, I want to help create the next generation of entrepreneurs,” he said. “I’m not just talking about writing poetry. If kids are not reading well, navigating their way through sophisticated documents, they won’t be successful in the 21st century.”
Article Appeared @http://blackamericaweb.com/2013/08/29/patrick-oliver-say-it-loud-faces-of-hope/2/