Iman Shumpert
First drafted by the New York Knicks, Iman Shumpert won an NBA championship with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Married to singer Teyana Taylor, they have a reality tv show on E! Network along with their two daughters. They appear in the Kanye West video, Fade, with over 160 million views. Iman appears on Showtime’s The Chi, BET’s Twenties and Dancing with the Stars. A rapper, Iman also has a clothing line. He was a member of the Oak Park and River Forest High School’s Spoken Word Club during his freshmen and sophomore years before basketball fully took over his extra-curricular time.
The impact of poetry and the spoken word club
“In high school, I was in a spoken word club, and it helped me to be better in music. The teacher, Mr. Kahn, was great at getting us to make something positive with our words as well as address issues and problems.”—New York Post, Nov., 2011.
“Shumpert’s game benefited from his work on another stage. He was active in his high school’s Spoken Word poetry club…. Shumpert… said those performances taught him things he uses on the court. ‘You learn to work with people, learn that different people have different strengths,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to find everybody’s strengths and bring them out.’” Dec., 2008 Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“ When I first started, I only wanted to rap. But a teacher in high school made me write a poem that didn’t have any rhymes. Then he made me do poems with different rhyme schemes. I work on it all the time. After practice, I’ll write lyrics in my phone. All my coaches have encouraged me to keep writing….I just like being creative.” --from IMG Academies blog interview, May 2011.
Writing Prompts
Think of someone no longer in your life. Write about an accomplishment you’ve achieved that you wish they could see
Write about a childhood memory with one of your favorite family members. Try to include at least one internal rhyme in the poem
Write about a time you used a painful experience as motivation
Write an apology poem
Write about a time you felt pain
Write a tribute to someone you lost
Write fond memories about someone no longer in your life