FOREST PARK — Steaven Misher has been writing poetry for about 30 years, but it wasn’t until about 10 years that he started to make money from it.
“I didn’t know you could be a poet and make money,” the Forest Park High School teacher said.
His wife encouraged him to pursue it, and he eventually started a website, started writing books and started getting paid for writing poems and doing recitations for special events such as weddings, funerals and graduations.
He’s also done special poems for Congressmen Hank Johnson and John Lewis and former President Jimmy Carter.
“It just kept getting bigger and bigger,” Misher said.
But as he started to get paid for his poetry, he realized he had a bigger purpose as well — to inspire young people.
“It’s not enough for me to just be writing,” he said. “This is my gift — this is what God gave me, but I need to help other people. I need to give back.”
The desire to give back led to establishing the POET (Poetic Outreach that Empowers and Transforms) Foundation to help students with public speaking, creating writing, poetry contests and scholarships.
“I wanted to do something to serve and help the young scholars for tomorrow,” he said.
An African American Studies teacher at Forest Park, he first taught at the school in 2005 but left to work five years in a prison.
While working there, he met two former students who were in prison, but they told him they remembered him and his class. That led him to come back to Forest Park High.
“I felt as though somebody was telling me something — my conscience, my intuition,” he said. “So I decided to come back and follow my spirit.”
His class is not just for African American students but for anyone who wants to learn.
“For those who are African American, I would like to think that they have walked away knowing about the unique…
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