artBeat Narrative

The seeds of artBeat Collective, Inc. were planted in a 2006 poetry seminar. Inspired be an exchange of their written work, founders, Montana Ray and Claudine Kanku Page, began a dialogue regarding the capacity of poetry to express ideas of social currency. 

Montana and Claudine were further united by an interest in East African culture; Claudine was fundraising to bring a local poet of Congolese origin, Omekongo wa Dibinga, to speak on Georgetown's campus, and Montana had previously worked as a curator for the Nommo Gallery, in Kampala, Uganda. In each other they found a shared objective to use the arts to fashion a positive self-image and promote communication across cultures. 

Calvin Coolidge High School Youth Poems

Posted below are two poems by Melanie Agnew's 10th graders at Calvin Coolidge High School generated in a workshop with Montana Ray.


Procrastination Sonnet
by Alexa Dickens

Be my washcloth as it brushes
across my face, hard enough
to clean but soft enough not
to damage the skin
wash away the worries and the to do's
the am i going to pass this test and the wash
the dishes.
maybe I'll just sleep on it and
start over again tomorrow, but I think
I said that yesterday


final exams
 by Jamar Brown

My life in school for final exams:

a mouse, Running to protect himself,
confused, don't know which way

Upstairs, Downstairs, left, right, zigzag,
I still don't get the problem which
answer should I choose

A. zigzag
B. left
C. right
D. in a crack of a door

Don't know

My final exams are like a mouse
confused

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