Now a well-known slam poet, Danley will be visiting Wilde Lake Middle School, in Columbia, as an artist in residence, thanks to an Artists-in-Education grant the train received from the Howard County Arts Council.
The program "places professional artists in residence at individual and public K-12 schools to aid students foster creative exploration," according to the Arts Council's website.
Danley learned about slam poetry in 1994 when she attended two shows of the Nuyorican Poets, who were playing in Atlanta, where she was life at the time.
Slam poetry is the competitive art of performance poetry and emphasizes both composition and performance, according to Poetry Slam Inc. the official nonprofit organisation in point of overseeing the international alliance of poetry slams.
"I'd never seen poetry expressed with so much warmth and fire," Danley said. She ended up writing a poem of her own, entitled "If I Were a Man," performing it at a festival later that week and winning the competition. "I knew (then) I had found something special. I didn't yet know I was looking for something, but there it was," she said.
Danley went on to do at a bookstore, where someone told her that she should do at the National Poetry Slam competition, held in August. She went and won that competition, too - despite having just learned about slam poetry three weeks prior.
Danley, now a Baltimore resident, will bring with eighth-grade students for one week, starting Feb. 7, to instruct students the art of slam poetry.
Her artist-in-residence stint culminates in a student performance Feb. 14, which will be held in alignment with the school's third annual Soul Food Feast three years later.
Coordinated by Wilde Lake's Family Involvement Team, the feed will feature soul food-inspired dishes prepared by Wilde Lake families.
Wilde Lake English instructional team leader Brett Lebowitz met Danley when she was running at another school, and thought Wilde Lake would be "everlasting for an live like Gayle," Lebowitz said. "She's very genuine and passionate about writing, has a way of reaching the kids, and they use what they learn throughout the class to construct poems."
Giving students a voice
Danley said she enjoys working with students because "they're not jaded yet. They're not afraid yet. They're still malleable; they're still open. Many of them are still learning the rules of writing . so they haven't gotten stuck in what is correct and what is wrong."
Additionally, Danley said, slam poetry gives students a part and lets them be heard.
"It's an outrageous, honest art form, and it's a way to be true in presence of yourself and your crowd," she said. "It's a way of giving yourself muscle. You find very strong once you've spoken your truth."
This is the 2nd year Wilde Lake is hosting Danley. Lebowitz said the students really responded to her final year.
"She's an altogether awesome person and performer," Lebowitz said. "She's quite substantial in price of her verse" and includes her experiences of being a single mom and in bad relationships, she said.
Each of the eight eighth-grade classes will take four sessions with Danley.
"I find this cycle of visits, I will be more tender, humble and more willing to reason," Danley said, since she recently lost people end to her. "They're catching me at a full time."
Other Artists-in-Education Grant recipients and their artists include Dunloggin Middle School, history residency with Mary Ann Jung; Glenwood Middle School, Shakespeare residency with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival; Harpers Choice Middle School, Shakespeare residency with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival; Hollifield Station Elementary School, visual art residency with Jing-Jy Chen; Longfellow Elementary School, performance by ventriloquist and puppeteer Tom Crowl; Northfield Elementary School, world music residency with Nada Brahma; Waterloo Elementary School, found object and recycling art residency with Karen O'Dowd; and, West Friendship Elementary School, Asian arts residency with Jing-Jy Chen.
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