Eyes crumpled and soaked in the tint of fury, fists unquestionable and prepared to strike -- this was how Shaniqua Anderson proclaimed her resentment in her past. It made it hard for students in class to even want to speak to her.
“I can’t stand you! Leave me alone,” she said. “Get up out of my face.” She doesn't remember how her friends responded.
But this young woman has been transformed.
Her poetry is a tension reliever for anger, she said.
Anderson, 16, felt very misunderstood because she says she felt like she didn't belong. She also noted that teenagers just didn't understand her and were too quick to judge. She wants to be heard, to be the center of attention and to be noticed, she said.
In her ninth grade English class at William Byrd High School, Anderson was assigned to work with two girls doing a poetry project that would be due in a couple of days. The girls would illustrate the images, and Anderson was to concentrate on the poetry verses.
She doesn't remember what set her off, but the amount of anger built into her was "unthinkable," she said. Her anger ruined multiple relationships, got her into lots of dilemmas and made her a bully.
After the poetry writing began, the changes worked well. Her mind went through a phase that is so hard to understand without the true experience and love to write, she said.
"I learned how to be respectful to myself as well as to others," Anderson said. "I had a huge heartfelt type of change. I could never go back to the way I was before." She became a new person.
“Things go right for so long, until you doubt the direction you took, and then everything goes wrong,” Anderson said after the change.
Later, she committed to writing poetry as a hobby. A poem of hers is called "Girl You Fake, Get Real."
