By George P. Hassett

A pioneer of the black arts movement sat in the audience watching, but the young authors from Mystic Ave. were at the center of attention. Books of Hope, a literacy program for kids at the Mystic Ave. housing project, had its culminating event at Porter Square Books when its young writers read aloud from their latest books.

Observing the performances was the program’s official writer in residence, Askia Toure, a protégé of Langston Hughes who taught African history in the first Africana Studies program at a major American university in 1967 at San Francisco State. Toure said he sees great potential in the young writers of Mystic Ave. and looks forward to mentoring them so he can continue a tradition he experienced under Hughes.

“Papa Langston was almost obsessively protective of the young African-American writers he mentored. He would just adopt you and read all your stuff and make you feel like you had a friend in the literary world,” he said. “Young writers deal with self-doubt and can feel alone, so just like Langston did with us, I’d like to set the example and model what an African-American writer should be in this interesting, confusing, colorful, modern society.”

Abdi Warsame, 16, read two Hughes selections, ‚ÄúThe Negro Speaks of Rivers‚Äù and ‚ÄúHarlem.‚Äù As he read, his peers in the audience quietly recited the words along with him. Soul Brown, the program‚Äôs director said Hughes‚Äô work often inspires pride in young black writers because he achieved a rare feat — he was a black author who made his way onto school reading lists.

However at Thursday’s reading, Hughes was not the only poet whose work was celebrated. As Tanisha Duchatelier read from her poem, “Dear Mr. President” her fellow Books of Hope authors quietly recited the poem along with her just as they did when Warsame read Hughes.

Brown said she meets with the stable of writers once a week at the Mystic Learning Center and guides them as they find their voices through writing exercises. At Thursday’s reading, works showcased included poems, memoirs, short stories and letters.

Stanley Pierre read a poem dedicated to his mother, with lines such as “T is for all the truth you told” and one he wrote for the troops in Iraq. “I’ll find myself angry or sad about something and I write as a way to deal with it. I wrote something for all the soldiers in Iraq when I was thinking of how bad this war is.”

Farrah Jean-Baptiste said she used to hate reading before her experience with Books of Hope. Today, she enjoys fantasy books such as the Harry Potter series and “The Hobbit.” She is also the author of “Eyes of Love” a collection that “expresses the many voices inside of her,” said Brown.

Brown said the diverse cultural backgrounds of the young authors give them a variety of languages to draw upon when writing. She emphasized that although they perform and read aloud from their work, the Books of Hope authors do not concentrate on spoken word performances, but instead the written word on the page. It is an important distinction, especially for young black authors, said Toure.

“We’re not just rapping, we’re focused on crafting the words on the page as writers. People try to tell us, ‘oh you must be spoken word artists.’ No, we are poets, just like Frost was a poet. It’s another attempt to devalue our work and patronize us. We’re not rappers, we shape language, we’re American poets,” he said.

Toure said he looked forward to working with writers like Pierre, Warsame and Baptiste in future workshops. ‚ÄúI see so many possibilities in them. They have a fierce dignity and they don‚Äôt bite their tongues for anyone. They are going to lead the human race into the future,‚Äù he said.