PROJECT JOURNAL

"This is a journal of my experiences teaching poetry to teens who are homeless, in jail, or in other ways leading difficult lives. In my work, I encourage the teens to write about 'who you are as a person'. They frequently respond by writing about early childhood trauma and loss, often in the form of abuse, abandonment, and violent death.

"The teens' writing is very sad. But there is more than sadness here. The teens who write with me are often relieved to talk about painful events that they may not have discussed before. The teens also find joy in the creative process and take pride in their finished work. Many teens have displayed great strength, intelligence, and resourcefulness in their lives, perhaps managing on their own at a very young age - accomplishments that are not reflected in their sad writing. And many teens have parents who have stuck by their troubled children, who are doing their best to help, and who are personally experiencing intense pain at witnessing their kids' unhappiness. These parents are extremely brave and soulful. The poetry here doesn't tell the parents' stories.

"For my part, my work teaching poetry to teens is very rich. It introduces me to essential needs and disappointments of human experience, and to the deepest of feelings. The work enables me to form brief but powerful emotional bonds with some remarkable, and remarkably honest, people. The work also provides me the opportunity to help individual teens and, by publishing the teens' writing, to help the larger community to a greater understanding of a misunderstood and suffering population. Ultimately, by helping troubled people to tell stories about their difficult lives, I have learned things that are profound, and I will try to share these lessons in this journal, as well.

"I hope you enjoy the journal pages that follow. They represent a very small part of what I've experienced and learned from the Pongo Publishing Teen Writing project. I'm writing a book about the work.

"Some names, events, descriptions, and stories have been changed, out of respect for the people I've met and for their privacy. Three of nine journal entries are linked here. You can also download the complete Journal document as a pdf file (392K)."