By Brian Dunlap

L.Á. native, high school English teacher and poet Alex Hohmann is passionate about her students. She’s always looking for ways to turn them into natural critical thinkers, citizens who evaluate and sort through the barrage of info society overwhelms them with, to understand the topic or issues at hand, to make informed decisions. To be able to understand themselves better.

So, in honor of this year’s National Poetry Month, held in April, she collaborated with John H. Francis Polytechnic High School’s Poetry Club, and colleague Eric Brown, to produce the inaugural issue of their literature and art review, Ascend. As she said on Facebook, “The students have worked so hard this year to create this amazing document to share with you!” Hohmann went on to highlight that “the students also had a chance to ‘think like a teacher’ and create discussion guides from their own work.”

The dedicated Poetry Club members of this Sun Valley LAUSD high school, met weekly on Zoom during the Pandemic, collaborating on Ascend, an idea that came together in 4-5 weeks. According to Hohmann they produced “the best writing we have seen in years.” This is high praise coming from the former Co-Facilitator of Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural y Bookstore’s In The Words of Womyn, a former writer’s group that “striv[ed] to create and foster a safe space in which womym explor[ed] and develop[ed] their identity as writers,” and a published poet whose work can be found in the seminal L.Á. poetry anthology Coiled Serpent.

In the accompanying discussion guide created by students, it, “provides some questions to help you appreciate the writing and art in the magazine,” penned by the Latinx heavy roster of student contributors. They expressed themselves “through art and words,” as it says in the issue’s Letter to the Reader, of which, “both [were] essential sources of creativity, inspiration, and relief during quarantine…despite the difficult circumstances.”

Alex Hohmann and Eric Brown continued to push their students during quarantine and provided them with a new way to express themselves and critical thinkers.

Check out the inaugural issue of Ascend here.