hello and welcome to we poets my name is sally baker and i'm the host of we poets we poets is a poetry show for boys and girls between the ages of six and thirteen so if you would like to be on the program please have your parents or your school teacher call me also we're always looking for interns interns must be between the ages of thirteen and nineteen and they help us produce our show each week so if you would like to be an intern please have your teacher or your parent call me also i'm always looking for adults to come and tell the boys and girls and young people about their job careers and tonight we have a story teller his name is kurt waller and he's going to come and tell you all about his interesting career we're nonprofit organization so we're always looking for sponsors so if you'd like to sponsor our program please call me so without further ado here we go we have two wonderful children tonight and they're going to be reciting stories that they have written so i know you're going to enjoy our program so here we go with our first young man hello young man how are you tonight good look there camera three and tell us your name and how old you are and what grade you're in please my name is i'm eight years old and i'm in second grade good what you like best about being in second grade my teachers is good what your teachers name misty good and do you like to study not that much not that much i don't think anybody does you like to go to library and check out books sometimes sometimes and who helps you with your homework at night mom or dad my dad your dad all that's good and he's going to perform the second half of our program right yes yes are you nervous no no you look very handsome tonight i'm very proud of you now tell me what is the name of the story that you've written for us and i'm going to recite tonight the wolf and little daughter ok let's hear it nice and loud once upon a time there was a little girl her name was sally she loved to pick flowers and sing see if she missed any flowers but a bright pink flower right outside the gate she looked around nobody was there so she picked the flower then she saw another another and another then she got pretty far away from home so she turned around and started to go back then she heard a boom boom boom coming from behind she turned around and she said i know who you are you're the big bad wolf the wolf said sing the song before you for lunch so you said ok well  outside the gate again great let's clap what that was very nice i'm very proud of you write very nice stories about yourself when you graduate from high school or college what kind of work you want to do i want to be famous you want to be famous well i think everybody wants to be famous would you like to be an athlete playing sports now i like to sing you like the saying you're going to be a singer i bet you're going to be a good singer now tell me what did you do this summer for fun well my dad and my brother we went to washington d c what did you do washington d c well w our family we were on a scavenger hunt and me and my dad came in second place good were some of the places you went blue went to the lincoln memorial still washington memorial the capit i'm very proud of you and thank you for coming and being on we poets ok and now we have a pretty young lady she's going to tell us all about herself i how i how are you tonight i really get how you good look lion the lying crab the mouse and caught caught the mouse with this part it was going to crush it the mouse say please don't hurt me i may be able to help you some day afterwards brian was caught in a net by the hunters in the forest he tried his best to get himself out but all his efforts remained fruitless so he began to reward and ma think the mouse and he realized that even a small creature could be of help to a stronger and bigger animal kindness never goes rewarding great let's pla very nice i'm very proud of you you write very well thank you now when you graduate from high school or college what kind of work do you think you'd like to do actually i would want to first travel because i like to go out and travel and then i would want to be a singer because i really like singing and you know like making songs what countries do you think you'd like to travel to i actually want to go back to my dad's hometown nigerian africa i want to visit there and i like to go to asia  china because i thought it was really cool in the bahamas wonderful you play a musical instrument oh thank you for reminding me actually play three one of them i used to play but i still practice it a little bit i used to play a guitar and i know to play two songs i'm learning two songs a little store star and a one direction song one thing and i play a piano and i play one of the classics i would now like to introduce you to my special guest for tonight his name is kurt waller he's a storyteller and now he's going to tell us all about his interesting career hi kurt how you doing tonight thank you for coming and bringing these two wonderful children they did an outstanding job i'm very proud of them now tell us what is a professional storyteller well as a storyteller i travel across the country anywhere where they let me tell a story to audiences of all ages and it's not what some people perceive where it's a librarian sitting down reading a book to preschoolers even though that's great but what i do is connect with audiences with words movement and music to tell a story whether it's a myth or a personal story or legend or folk tale and that's in a nutshell what storytelling is as as a tell is what i do great and how did you get involved in storytelling well i used to work with children after school program and reading stories to them every day and sometimes the same stories over and over again and one day i realized that i know the story put the book aside i looked at them in the eyes and i told them the story it was like something magic happened and there's a connection this dynamic th happening between me and the audience and that's kind of how i discovered it or or found out about storytelling then one thing led to another and and here i am today fifteen years later wonder for now how long have you been involved and what are some of the exciting things that you've been doing i storytelling only about fifteen or twenty years somewhere around that i've been doing storytelling and some of the most exciting things i think two things really come to mind the one of the highlights for me i got to tell at the national storytelling festival which is in jonesborough tennessee and i was telling in front of fifteen hundred people and that was like the biggest audience i've ever told on and it was a wonderful experience and some of the other things though that i just really love the most exciting things are doing kind of like working with the kids that you saw today whether it's a a group of by fifteen or going to a children's hospital but somehow just connecting to others using storytelling is even more exciting in a lot of ways in the big audiences in the big festivals because that's what storytelling is very intimate i think in nature because you're trying to connect with your audience or with the other people that are learning to tell stories could it now i understand you've won some awards in your art form tell us about those awards but one of the things i won that i'm really proud of is the national storytelling network which is a member organization awarded me several years ago the j j no j j renaud and merging artist award and it's only one person gets it every other year and it was a great honor and those monetary but it is more than that it was recognizing the work that i had done in storytelling up to that date and so that's something very very proud of and the other thing i'm very proud of is one of my c d s which we'll talk about in a minute in one a parent's choice gold award which is hard to get and i'm you know i cherish that and appreciate that opportunity as well isn't this great now i have one more question before we talk about your things here on the table if someone wanted to learn more about storytelling look at they do a couple things right off the bat if they really want to get into they can contact me they could give me an e mail but this is what the national storytelling network that i mention right here in the bay area we have a bay area storytelling festival which is always the third weekend in may and they could come to that look up both of those online or like i said look up my web site shoot me an email and i can point to some other resources as well good why don't you give us your e mail to come up on the screen the plan is to give it to us please it's tele that's telling with no g telling kirkwall or dot com and i'm real good at checking that and responding and pointing you to the right place if you're interested in storytelling and want to hear more about what i'm doing good now you've brought some things here on the table let's talk about these things on the table please ok so this first one is this is the storytelling cd that i mentioned it's called but why stories music and songs and that's the one that won the parents choice gold so really proud of that my kids are rather than other children at singing and helping me tell the stories this is the first cd i did quite gavel squawk and other animal tales and it was actually a parent's choice award not as high as this one but it won one as well and this one is dear to my heart because it's called my angel and my wife passed away about five years ago in this is a storytelling tribute about her life and it's it's telling about her and them our time together and our kids and so this is something that i really is near and dear to me and this last one is called sister water and mrs wyndham it's an old african american folk tale that i recreated and that's actually what i'm going to tell in a little bit later but this is the first and only children's book i wrote today isn't this great we've been a busy man and i haven't tried is stable sta do what i'm doing as best as i can possibly do what countries have you traveled to outside the united states and travel in other countries that's actually a goal to do just to tell stories internationally been to a lot of other states but haven't been outside the country telling stories a is sister water and mrs win way back way way back when the earth was young and sweet sister water and mrs when with them best of friends so early in the mornin this is when one gather herself and she a happy hour to the sun was high in the sky and like most mamas their conversation will always sooner rather than later turn to the children who did you hear that strong east wind blowing this mornin and turn to brag and and nobody knows who said what first but somehow it was mrs when who's that will let me tell you somethin sister water from the east where north wind south and west wind blowing much eld and all over god are over the earth so well what you got to say about that and the two went back and forth in the wind begin to blow and hound the ways begin to crash and on lead the folks and seen nothing like that that was the berry first storm and all  the earth they took the animals inside and mama's mama hill the baby's tight and they rocked him and she told him not to worry about the storm that they had never experienced before and the mamas sang songs like kirk who did a wonderful job i'm so pleased and proud of my dough everybody is going to enjoy that very much and before we end our program i'd like to see if our two poets would have any parting words so let's start over your would you have any party word you'd like to tell our watching audience yes this has been a great experience staley's who wanted to be on t v and i just loved it i never knew spine good i'd like to have you come back again and tell your friends and bring some of them maybe they could read  she likes to spotlight she's just a to go to work today sell he was available and he take you know his sleepy you know for us wonderful i know he's a wonderful ben i know he's very proud of you thank you for coming any parting words for you young man this is my second time being on t v the first time i was in a parade it was a christmas parade and you told me that you were in another pageant and tell me about that what was that pageant occur can you help us out of clay or play tell us about the play this last year was my first big part in the play because the other the other two years i just had like two or five words but this time i was glued like candy canes and peppermint on oh oh so you smell like peppermint candy canes and then right i want to take a bite of you know some people some people or anything else you'd like to tell us about you contact me or contact the show and they know how to contact me again you know come up on the screen but why don't you give your drafts or your email number and the hour secure open that people can contact you sure because email i'm open twenty four hours a com or my website if you know my name you remember that it is kirk waller dot com and so we hope the future brings lots of great things for you right yes it should be fun the kids did such a great job today and looking forward to doing some more stories with them in the future good we're out of time so let's say goodbye to our watching audience good bye everybody and thank you for watching bye by