Ten Penny Players, Inc.

Interview with Ten Penny Players

2012-01-24T11:54:00.000-05:00

Top 5 Titles at Ten Penny Players' online archive

2012-01-13T09:49:00.002-05:00

1 Supplement to Waterways (December '79) - 3633 reads

This was the fourth book of poems Ten Penny Players published from child poets attending PS 41 in Greenwich Village. The children were among the readers we invited to perform their poetry at the December 13, 1979, Day of Poetry at NYU's Loeb Student Center.

2 Reprising Joy - 3570 reads

Barbara Fisher's publication recaps the 2007-8 school year when Ten Penny Players presented a new arts curriculum -- Reprising Joy -- using pets, poetry, and photographs to motivate creative expression in self contained and inclusive environments.

3 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream (Vol.1 no.4) - 3525 reads

On August 2, 1980, The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players' poetry book fairs and readings returned to the Village. We were living on Greenwich Street, not far from the site of the event at the North River Bulkhead, Bank and West Streets. That made it easier for us to load cartons of publications onto our dolly and deliver the books. Children and adults were published.

4 The Story of Greenwich Village (Part 14) - 3446 reads

In the 1920's Bobby Edwards was a cigar box ukelele troubadour, star of the Greenwich Village Follies, and editor of The Quill. In this history he writes of "stained glass, the early post-impressionistic and expressionistic scene sets of the Little Theatres and the sporadic efforts of the easel picture makers, all of which may possibly be regarded as generically artistic."

5 Streams 14 - 2937 reads

A Ten Penny Players anthology.

Indices to Waterways Poetry Magazines

2011-12-14T18:05:00.003-05:00

We have just made freely accessible online author indices to the first 20 years of our 32 year old publication Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream (1980-98) and the NYS Waterways Project (1979-80).

To access the indices --
Go to www.tenpennyplayers.org
click on
Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream
then click on either
NYS Waterways Project 1979-80
or
Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream (1980-98)

From 1980-98, we published five thousand six hundred and fifty poems by nine hundred seventy five poets including Albert Huffstickler, Will Inman, Lyn Lifshin, Barbara Holland, D. Nurkse, Hal Sirowitz, Ida Fasel, Joanne Seltzer, and Laurel Speer.

Barbara Fisher and Richard Spiegel
co-directors
Ten Penny Players, Inc.

NEA Funding

2011-10-28T17:36:00.001-04:00

During the Great Depression, the Federal Writer’s Project (FWP) did not fund poetry publications, but employed “destitute” poets to carry out specified projects. By 1980, the staff of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) believed that their funding of poetry and literature was different from the FWP. The NEA encouraged writers and editors to submit their own projects designs. The NEA chair decided who was funded. The Literature Program administrator advised the chair. Panelists of poets, editors and arts administrators advised the program administrator. Panelists were known to have their favorites or leaned over backwards to appear impartial.

In 1979 Ten Penny Players and Bard Press received a seeding grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the New York State Waterways Project, a consortium of New York poetry presses. Barbara and I arranged for eight outdoor book fairs along the Hudson River waterfront. For each event, over the first two years of the program, Waterways documented the poetry readings with a magazine that was edited printed and assembled in house.

As we became more involved in public education, we introducing the Waterways Project’s poetry publications to students attending New York City’s Alternative High Schools & Programs. This motivated the students to create their own poetry which was published by Waterways. The student publications gave students the opportunity to encounter peer writing and encouraged their teachers to invite more creativity into the classrooms in schools. Through book fairs, readings, publications, and workshops Waterways has worked to develop new poets as well as passionate new audiences for the written word.

Picture Books IV

2011-08-21T12:04:00.001-04:00

During the school years 2002-4, eight Island Academy teachers adapted our curriculum to their own particular teaching style. They gathered In weekly meetings to discuss what they were doing and share student publications.

The teachers brought forth the poems and pictures that lay hidden in their students. It was hard time consuming work, but the teachers looked forward to the excitement on their students’ faces when they received their own publications. At the weekly teacher gatherings teachers took pride in their students’ work. There was story after story of specific students who showed interest in schoolwork after weeks of apathy.

As the first set of books were published, teachers reported that students suddenly came to life, showing off their published books to their classmates. The students were eager to show them to their family and friends.

When students joined the discussion, they spoke about how their teachers encouraged them and how they felt seeing their art and words in print with their names on it. They told of renewed self-esteem, encouragement from teachers, praise from fellow students, and expressed a desire to continue writing and creating art. Some wrote of hoping to study journalism, creative writing or art in college.

The Civil Rights Movement

Picture Books III

2011-08-11T09:25:00.002-04:00

In 1998, Ten Penny Players, as a result of two grants, was able to hire artists to work for us as consultants. Among the visual artists who worked with us were Magie Dominic, Jonathan Sharpe, Desirae Foston, and Molly Barker. Molly Barker was employed by the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players to teach our students how to make picture books.

We met Molly at the annual Indie Book Fair at the Mercantile Library in Midtown, Manhattan. Molly's display of her limited edition art books was on a table next to Ten Penny Players’ display of Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, BardPress poetry chapbooks, Ten Penny Players' children's books, Streams, and curricula.

The picture book project evolved from Waterways’ poetry chapbook series, In Search of a Song, which had also evolved into a district wide program. Making picture books gave students new ways of thinking and approaching a subject, which helped them become better writers.

That school year Molly worked with 16-21 year old students from Frederick Douglass Literacy Center and New York City Vocational Training Center (VTC). Each class was a self-contained unit taught by one teacher. Each student produced a book, which was published in a limited edition. Some of the picture books were selected for publication in Streams.

Motherhood

Debt

We shared the picture book curriculum at the New York State Council on the Arts' Empire State Partnership’s summer seminars which enabled networking and constituency building among arts groups throughout the state. The picture book curriculum developed by Molly Barker and Ten Penny Players entered the NYS Academy of Teaching and Learning in 2000 after it underwent peer review in Albany.

Picture Books II

2011-07-28T10:12:00.002-04:00

When I first met Barbara, Thomas was in the fourth grade at PS 41. For three years he had been home schooled. After the passage of PL 94-142, children with disabilities could no longer be turned away from the schools, and he was admitted to the local Greenwich Village elementary school.

Little Poems 
Barbara designed a federally funded nutrition curriculum for the school. She wrote and illustrated little books for the classroom: Jolly Molly Molar,

Jolly Molly Molar

and Harmony Hurricane Muldoon, a little girl on a raft in the digestive system.

Harmony Hurricane Muldoon

When we began presenting book fairs on the New York City waterfront, Barbara designed the pages for the early NYS Waterways Project magazines, which were documents of the poetry reading at each event. She used Dover’s copyright free art, old prints from our bookshelves, and her own illustrations. The August 19, 1979 issue contained 19th Century illustrations that accompanied verses for children.

NYS Waterways Project - 1979 5

Barbara helped me mat my drawings, but none were exhibited. My friend, PJ, and I believed that art was priceless. Why attach a value? In London I had asked people to pay what they wanted for my chapbook Chrylust. At an early block fair, on Twelfth Street I asked people to pay what they wanted for my drawings. One local artist argued that artists need to expect a reward for their work. I insisted my art was non-conceptual. PJ had coined the term which he also referred to as noncon art.

Tally - Abstracting an Abstract

Each issue of Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream opened with a title page that contained an illustration and the theme for the month. In January ’87 the theme was “For what is the present after all,/but a growth out of the past?” The title page was illustrated with drawing of a chick developing within and then hatching from an egg. On the contents page was a silhouette of Father Time. He was chasing a dandy in top hat and riding boots. The third page of each issue of Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstreams was traditionally left for an illustration. For 1987, Barbara chose a 19th Century illustration of Father Time, a clock, scythe, old years passing away, a mummy, and a child representing the new year of 1889. Barbara's photographs from the Gansevoort Street Green Market and drawings she reduced on the photocopier illustrated the poems.

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 8 No 1

For the 1996 themes, we did away with words altogether and used pictographs from the Walam Olum (An epic of the Lenni Lenape):

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 17 No 1

Picture Books I

2011-07-23T13:15:00.001-04:00

For 32 years, my wife, Barbara Fisher, has worked with me to realize Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream. She’s read through the many submissions by students, unrecognized writers and accomplished poets. She hand printed covers and inserts on her Kelsey letter press and our leased photocopiers. She has chosen art and created collages that have accompanied the poems on the pages. She has done “the scud work as well as the more interesting stuff.” And jokes that she won’t wear nail polish because her “fingertips are engrained with black printer’s ink.”

In the second issue of the NYS Waterways Project (7/21/79), Barbara used two 19th century drawings as fillers: "floating his tricycle" and "the speaker's free platform."

NYS Waterways Project - 1979 2

A year later (7/26/80),

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 1 No 3

she presented readers with a collage from her children’s book, “Link Ups".

By July, 1984, we’d settled into what has become Waterways consistent format (7x4.25),

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol. 5 No. 7

Barbara was still printing the cover by hand on her letterpress, typesetting the issue on an IBM Selectric typewriter, adding illustrations to the title page, and accompanying the poems with relevent pictures. By July of 1987, we were using a two tone printer and Barbara was putting illustrations on almost every page.

Chapbooks IV

2011-07-16T16:37:00.001-04:00

A symbol places the intangible vision of the individual into the material reality of the public realm. The writer evokes experience in names that are symbols; while the publisher takes the writers’ work and goes beyond the naming of things. Publishing brings out the work in print and on line.

For more than thirty years, while printing books of student writing and curriculum for NYC schools and programs, Ten Penny Players continued to publish Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, a monthly poetry magazine, and the BardPress poetry chapbooks. Among the poets we published both in the magazine and in their own chapbooks were Ida Fasel, Joanne Seltzer, Joy Hewitt Mann, and Albert Huffstickler.

Though we're uncomfortable with the fact that Scribd.com carries advertising, the site gives us an opportunity to bring our poetry archive to a larger audience. At this writing there have been more than 230,000 reads of Ten Penny Players’ publications on Scribd.com.

Once their chapbooks were published, students could walk away, write another book, or stay to consider the effects of their published words upon other writers and other communities: How did the rhythm of the author’s voice echo in the reader’s response? What ideas or phrases were repeated? How did it shape contemporary consciousness among other students?

Ten Penny Players online archive of chapbooks provided data to describe reading trends that shifted like the wind. Clouds of chapbooks (the textual embodiments of student voices) passed across cyber-sky.

Poems exist in the consciousness streaming between authors and readers. Ancient poets sought inspiration in the words of the muse carried by whispering mists rising up through fissures in the earth.

To publish poetry is to make manifest a pattern of human communication that asks the reader to respond. The influence that moves poets to make poems leads publishers to put in print books that animate the blood and bones of every day existence.

Chapbooks III

2011-07-05T21:18:00.001-04:00

In London, England (1970) I published Chrylust and a poetry broadside that came out of my experience teaching in Liberia.

Four years later on Upper West Side of Manhattan, I began publishing a poetry chapbook series under the imprint BardPress. The poets I published were part of a group then known as the Scribblers. I had founded the group by offering a weekly reading held in the apartment I shared with Vinnie Gunn on West 85th Street. Clint McCown’s Labyrinthiad and my poem, Icarus, were the first chapbooks BardPress published. Works by Barbara A. Holland, Matt Laufer and Patricia Kelly followed.

In 1974, I was also working for Bantam Books, selling new and back list titles to bookstores and distributors by phone. At Bantam I also worked with Ted Solotaroff on the editorial board (for the last two years) of his literary magazine, The American Review. I also worked as a play reader for Joseph Papp at the Public Theater; and initiated a series of poetry readings, the Hell’s Kitchen Poetry Festival, at St. Clement’s Church on West 46th Street.

On W. 10 St. and Greenwich Ave, cater-cornered from the Jefferson Market Library, was Paul Johnston's bohemian garret. PJ was born in 1899, moved to the Village in the 1920’s, and became a fine press printer and book designer. PJ operated a letter press printing fine poetry chapbooks, including the Poetry Quartos for Random House and helped me understand design and publishing in the age of photocopiers.

On Greenwich and W. 12th Street, around the corner from Abingdon Square Park, was Barbara Fisher’s loft, home to Ten Penny Players, Inc. Barbara used a letter press to print miniature books. She exhibited at Manhattan art galleries and the annual Alternative Press New York Book Fair. Ten Penny Players and BardPress began working together in 1978. The New York State Waterways Project was the first imprint from both of us.

By bringing our publishing program to public schools, Barbara and I gained a livelihood, while dedicating ourselves to poetry. The chapbook series, In Search of a Song, began when Barbara taught a weekly writing workshop at Public Schools 114 and 276 in Canarsie (1981). The series continued at the children’s poetry workshop she conducted weekly at the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library.

When we brought the project to NYC alternative high schools, I joined the many teachers who were preparing their students to write and read. We were in the classrooms, developing a new audience for poetry. We collaborated with teachers to prepare lessons, introduce students to the work of other contemporary poets, and inspire the students to express their own ideas.

The volumes from our ‘In Search of a Song’ presented a new urban student literature depicting the latter part of the Twentieth Century seen through the eyes of public school students. We were invited into their new world.

Contact with the teachers and teaching artists influenced the students’ work. Teachers helped the students to realize that their thoughts were worth expressing and their talents need not be hidden. The best teachers created a classroom atmosphere where all students felt safe to read their work to others.

Joshua Wolinsky wrote to his teacher:
Thank you Ms. Economos
for showing me the talent
I never took seriously.
Without you, these poems
in this book would never be here.

Students wrote about their esteem and affection for the teachers. Among the many teachers and artists who worked with Waterways were Donna Campbell, Molly Barker, Louis Reyes Rivera, Magie Dominick, Michele Beck, Nena Shaheed, Benny Daniels, Magdalena Gomez, Randy Wright, Lucia Ruedenberg-Wright, Ellen Lytle, Frank Stearns, Alison Zadrow, Sal Canale, Ronald G. King, Jane Califf, Frank Grabinski, Janet Griffith, Paul Douglas, Miriam Lock, Tom Mitchelson Jack Giordano, Madeline Brownstone, Paul Takis, Lisa Jesse Peterson, D. Nurkse, Linda Notovitz, Mel Cohen, Zoe Anglesey, David Glick, Gus Rodriguez, Alison Koffler, Ron King, Matthew Hejna-Luque, Margo Mack, J. A. Brathwaite, Builder Levy, Joan Martinez, Max Mendes, Judith Rosenbaum, Moli Ntuli, Maura Gouck, Thomas Perry, Rodolfo Rodriguez, César Roquez, Ofelia Rodriguez Goldstein, Tyona Washington, Jonathan Sharpe, Roslyn Kaye, James Patton, Thelma Ruffin Thomas, Olga Economos, Jonathan Shapiro, Barnaby Spring, Donald Lev, Enid Dame, Wendy Thorpe, Gail Tuch, Barbara Youngman, Toby Greenzang, Myrtle Liburd, Leila Riley, Ben Jacobs, Paul Auerbach and many others.

I look back over these books twenty years after they were published. Some of the best writing still stands out. The publications are worth repeat readings.

Chapbooks II

2011-07-04T23:28:00.000-04:00

In the summer of 1970, my first poetry chapbook, Chrylust, was printed at the London New Arts Lab on Roberts Street in London, England. I hawked it on the streets, parks, galleries, theaters, libraries and coffee houses, including the Arts Lab, the Troubadour, and Roundhouse.

The poems came from journals of creative expression I kept while teaching Literature at Buchanan High School in Liberia, West Africa (1969). I left the Peace Corps and traveled with the journals. On the Canary Islands I burnt most of the manuscript in an act meant to unburden me of their weight. I saved a handful of pages, which I carried through Marrakech and Casablanca in Morocco, Leon and Malaga in Spain; and then across France to Amsterdam and over the Channel to London.

The printer at the London New Arts Lab in 1970 was amused by the slim manuscript of expressive writing that I called "anti-literature." The first edition of Chrylust was limited to a few hundred copies, saddle stitched, with a cover illustration that I had drawn.

I often hawked my chapbook, Chrylust, at the psychedelic events at the the Roundhouse on Chalk Farm Road. The poetry reached out to a generation that was forsaking material possessions and unburdening itself from the weight of history. The hippies at the Roundhouse were tripping high above serendipitous safety nets. They were networking for food, shelter, and communication.

Chapbooks I

2011-07-03T16:02:00.000-04:00

“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration.”
-- Shelly 'In Defense of Poetry'

To develop new audiences for poetry and encourage creative writing, we began in 1978 to publish children, student writers, and unrecognized poets along with accomplished authors. We typeset, photocopied, and saddle stitched our magazine, Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, which contained no advertising.

By 1985, our Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players, Inc. was adopted as an arts in education partner for New York City’s Office of Alternative High Schools and Programs, turning out weekly site based magazines and an annual student anthology, Streams. The limited edition site based magazines were typeset, printed, collated, and saddle stitched in our loft. Streams was printed offset and perfect bound by the Print Center, a not for profit literary printer in lower Manhattan.

In 1996, David Bickimer, from Pace University, suggested Ten Penny Players reward students, who present 15 or more poems, with an individual chapbook. The books became part of our chapbook series (In Search of a Song) which Barbara began with the children from her weekly writing workshops at PS 276 and 114 in Canarsie and the Jefferson Market Branch of the NY Public Library in 1981.

In Search of a Song Vol. 1

The original library chapbooks (2.75” x 4.25”) had letter press printed covers and were typeset on an IBM Selectric and saddle stitched. The chapbooks that became part of our arts in education curriculum were modeled after the early Bard Press books I had published. They were (4.25” x 5.5”) typeset using Quark on a Mac computer, printed and collated on a Minolta copier, and saddle stitched by hand.

We adapted to the special needs of our students by publishing literacy students with less than 15 poems, and on occasion publishing prose. A student who made the effort to write 15 poems did not prove she was more deserving of being published than the student who wrote one or two brilliant poems.

Ten Penny Players/Waterways poetry chapbooks were intended to reward the student for positive behavior (creative writing) and develop a new audience for poetry and expressive writing. We published all students, and on occasion discovered the writer who was capable of exceptional poetry. Finding a talented writer did not mean that the student would create better work over time. An author may be constantly challenged to write better, but that will not always be possible.

For many alternative high school students from poor urban neighborhoods, writing a book and seeing it published was the rare occasion when success touched their lives. The same would be true for our students in hospitals and other institutions. And in the adult world for most people the rare joy of that kind of recognition also holds true.

The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players worked in partnership with NYC’s Alternative High Schools and programs. Waterways brought expressive writing and publishing to schools, group homes, community centers, hospitals, rehab centers, and teen parent programs.

Waterways poetry teachers engaged students with disabilities in New York City’s prison schools in creative writing. Students wrote expressively in their own voices, to state their cases through poetry published in chapbooks. In the mid 1980’s the Waterways Project was introduced as part of NYC’s public school curriculum. Ten Penny Players community of poets, artists, and NYC licensed teachers used word processors and worked on line. Students created files of fifteen poems and submitted them on floppy disks.

For the Internet of the late 90’s, we developed Streams On Line (SOL), an open source program. SOL ran on local intranets and later on the Internet itself. It was designed to help students develop a body of work while getting feedback from teachers and peers.

In 2010 Scribd.com offered us a presentation application and free space for our large archive of print publications. We wanted our archive to be accessible to students, parents, educators, researchers, and the interested public. Giving voice to an era. We had already put the work in print. We never charged for the books. They are our only asset. I digitized chapbooks by scanning them on our Minolta printer, uploading them to Scribd.com, and sharing the link on Facebook and Twitter.

Students were reliving memories from their youth on the Internet. Our work online got the word out while publishing and developing new audiences for poetry. The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players put creative expression and poetry online to give others a chance to learn.

Struggling For Survival

2011-07-02T22:07:00.001-04:00

There is hope that schools will serve as lifeboats out of inner city poverty and the ghetto. But, success in school is not guaranteed for everyone. When only a few succeed, we must ask what about the rest?

In the Babylonian epic, Gilgamesh, a prototype for the Biblical Noah, Utnaphishtim, survives the great flood. But, at what price? He sees all those around him drown:

Bodies lay like alewives dead
And in the clay. I fell down
On the ship’s deck and wept. Why? Why did they
Have to die! I couldn’t understand. I asked
Unanswerable questions a child asks
When a parent dies -- for nothing. Only slowly
Did I make myself believe -- or hope -- they
Might all be swept up in their fragments
Together
And made whole again
By some compassionate hand.

(from the Herbert Mason translation. New American Library 1970 page 78)

In the urban ghetto there are street gangs, immigrants, poverty, and those trying to emerge from the stresses of their situation. Some people, sensitive to the struggle because of their roots, return as teachers, not as strangers to the place, but in the hope that their empathy will help the children in the schools.

Along with millions of other East Europeans, the grandparents of many New York City teachers put their own roots down in the New World in the early years of the Twentieth Century.

Their children moved away from Brooklyn, out of Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Ocean Hill Brownsville, Bedford Stuyvesant; leaving the grandmother in Brighton Beach, and the grandmother with a wheelchair living in the projects with her adult epileptic son and Pitsy, the family dog.

Brooklyn’s Frederick Douglass Literacy Center was not far from where their grandparents lived. What common experiences did the teachers find in the writing from their students, who were also immigrants? But this time from the Caribbean, Central and Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, as well as people relocated from states outside New York.

On My Block
by Priscilla H
(page 4)

On my block, the kids
they play.
They play in the Johnny pump
most of the day.
And when the sun is shining bright
and the mood is just right
they go to the pool
to get really carried away.
On my block
music can be heard from Nostrand to Bedford.
Yo, that’s my word.
On my block
you can smell charcoal burning,
smoke roaming the air and
many activities going on
here and there.

Relocating is a common occurrence of a society in transition. Ben wrote of Stravitz, a friend, who moved away.

Stravitz
by Ben
(pages 11-12)

I remember you from seventh grade...
or maybe it was sixth...
You and I were friends,
one of my few friends in our school...
Of course, you had more than me.

You got a guitar that was better than mine;
and you asked me if I was jealous;
and I said no
and that was a lie.

I was jealous of you from time to time.
You had a new brother,
when we went on that audition with our acting class you
got the call back.
You had a country house.
You seemed to often have something that I wished I had.

But then I saw your problems.
Your brother was mentally disabled;
you were always really small;
you had to move.

When you moved
I thought that was going to be horrible for me.
But, I realize it was probably worse for you.
I can’t imagine anyone liking moving away from their
home and friends.

I can imagine you now.
You probably got really tall;
your family is probably quite distressed over your
brother;
you probably listen to music that I would hate.

I know I’ll most likely never see you again.
I can’t imagine how or why I would.
I don’t really get upset over that
and I’m sure you don’t either.

I’m getting along fine.
I was quite upset when you left, being that you were my
best friend.
But, hey,
I lived and so did you.
It just shows how much things can change.

The 125th Street Massacre
by Freddy M
(excerpted from pages 13-14)

On December 8, 1995, my focus of life was blanked. My best friend who I knew for ten years, was dead in a massacre burning. When this incident happened at 125th Street, in Freddy’s Clothing Store, I was waiting for her to go to a party. My friend, Cynthia Martinez, was making a good move up in her life.
....
Cynthia Martinez was getting herself together. She was wearing nice clothing. She stopped drinking beer, had lots of nice jewelry and also helped her mother with the rent. I was happy for her. I loved Cynthia as if she were my own sister. We laughed together. We went places together. We were just enjoying life. That was until December 8, 1995, when the disaster happened. A crazy person went inside Freddy’s. He started to shoot everyone inside with a hand gun that he was carrying. He shot two people. The other six ran downstairs to the basement including Cynthia Martinez. They were downstairs terrified. The crazy man lit the whole store up. It was on fire. The people downstairs did not know what to do. the fire was getting bigger and bigger. The smoke was too much. It was so much that it killed four of the six that were downstairs in the basement. One of the victims who died was my best friend, Cynthia Martinez. The others were friends of hers. Two survived because they were getting air from a hole in the wall. Everyone else was killed.
....
I could not believe that all of this was really happening. She was a sweet and intelligent person trying to get her life together. She was always there to solve problems One time she told me she was tired of working at Freddy’s and was ready to quit her job. When I was speaking to her, though, I told her not to quit her job. “You are looking good and doing good for yourself.” Now I feel guilty. I feel like I was the one that killed her. I wish now that she had quit her job. If she did, she would be alive.

All families sooner or later deal with life and death issues. Cynthia was getting her life together at Freddy’s Clothing Store. Her friend, Freddy (no relation to the store), blamed himself for Cynthia’s death. Writing about and sharing his thoughts about the incident, served as a catharsis to help purge his pity and terror.

My Story
by Colleen
(excerpted from pages 16-17)

I was born on May 25th, 1978, in Queens, New York. I am Chinese and, although I was raised the American way, I tend to stay around people of my own culture.
.....
Three days after my father’s death I was raped by two ex-boyfriends. That’s when everything started to affect me. My mother started to give me all the freedom she could possibly give me. I started to cut school all the time. I hung out with gangs; got into a lot of fights; stole other people’s money and started smoking. When I went to high school, I attended school for three years. I decided to take my GED, since I couldn’t finish school on time.
....

My Story
by Lena
(excerpted from pages 19-20)

I am 18 years old. I was born in North Shore Hospital on June 17, 1977. My cultural background is Palestinian.
....
I left home because my parents were influenced by their culture and religious beliefs. They thought that they had to marry my sisters and me at the age of sixteen. The first time they tried to arrange a marriage for me I tried to commit suicide, because I didn’t think there was another way out. The second time they tried to arrange a marriage for my sisters and me we decided that’s not the way we wanted to live our lives. We wanted to live a normal and healthy life, have our education and become successful people. So we decided to leave home on June 12, 1994. We had to hide out for a year, and we weren’t able to attend school. Now we are both legal adults and are able to face our parents. We have decided to get our education and make something of ourselves.
....
My life has been rough, but I am strong, and I have been a lucky person. Now I have a chance to make my own decisions as with whom and where my life is directed.

How My Parents Met
by Carlos A
(excerpted from page 22)

My parents were about seventeen and eighteen years of age. They were attending John Dewey High School. They both were at lunch and they didn’t know each other until the incident.
My mother was sitting a few tables from my father. My mother decided to talk to one of her friends, and she yawns at the same time. My father saw her yawning, so he got ready and shot a spit ball straight in to my mother’s mouth. My mother choked for only a little bit. She stood up and walked towards my father.
....

Chip Off the Old Block
by Lordikim aka L. Boogie
(excerpted from pages 24-28)

The streets. There’s many rules and codes of the streets. As a young man growing up on Webster Avenue in the South Bronx, the streets were basically all I knew. I am the middle child of my mother’s five children. My father went to prison a few months after my birth. But no matter what, my mother always did what she had to do to keep a nice clean apartment and food on the table.
.......
As I got older, around 14 years old, I began to think the world revolved around me. boy was I wrong. By the time I turned 15 I was in with the wrong crowd and more disrespectful than ever. Disrespectful to my brothers and sisters, disrespectful to my mother, disrespectful to everybody.
Soon after that my mother was pretty fed up with my $#!. At nights when I was supposed to be home at 8 pm, I was home at 11 pm. When I was supposed to be on punishment I would sneak out anyway. After several warnings I was finally on the streets. Fifteen years old and on the streets. I couldn’t believe my own mother would do that to me, not realizing I did it to myself. And come to find out, all the *!&&$ I ran with didn’t give a ?@% about me. I mean these were the people I thought I would kill for. After days of thinking and talking to my younger brother, I was finally back in the house, but I hadn’t changed at all. Still on my same $#!
I’ve been rapping since 11 years old. The only times that I was off the streets and at ease was when I was home writing rhymes. Soon I exposed my talent and before I knew it everyone knew me as L. Boogie, the kid with mad skills. The excitement and publicity got to me, but it didn’t swell my head. It made me realize that this was the route for me. I was never a drug dealer; sticking people up was my thing. I figured -- why sell drugs for money when I could just take the money? That would be easier and, besides, that was the route my older brother took. There would be times when he’d come in the house with more loot than I’d ever seen in my life.
Wishing I had the money he had I started to do the things he did. The only difference was I wanted to be a rapper, not a stick-up kid. My brother seemed to enjoy the crime life. For him and his crimes it was an every day thing.
Before I knew it my brother was on Rikers Island charged with several accounts of armed robbery.
......

The Life of a Chinese Gang Member
by Jack
(excerpted from pages 30-32)

I was born and raised in Taiwan. When I was born my mother and father didn’t treat me well. Actually, my grandmother and grandfather raised me until I was 3. My grandparents went to the U.S. and left me with my parents. After one year my grandparents called and told my parents to come to the U.S. to live. I left Taiwan when I was 7. I didn’t want to leave but I was happy to see my grandparents, though that’s something I do not want to talk about because my grandfather passed away when I was hanging out.
.......
I joined Ghost Shadows in the summer of 1990. One reason I joined the gang was because my grandfather passed away and my mother divorced my father. I had nobody to take care of me so I ran away from home. Life is not easy out there. You have to do anything to survive in the streets. Once I was involved in a shoot out with the Flying Dragons. It was dangerous and exciting. I shot somebody in the leg who was 30 yards away. For about ten months, I was out there doing thing s that I knew were bad.
.......
Let’s talk about Riker’s Island, C-74, ARDC, the building of pain and sorrow. This is life in jail. If you snitch you will get cut. The most important things in jail are the phone and commissary. Without them things would be very wild. How to survive in jail: the way I see it is when somebody is trying to hurt and play you, either you fight or cut them. If you don’t, you’re the herb. I found that being a Chinese minority in jail is not hard. If you don’t get loose, the people won’t violate you or try to hurt you. When other Chinese come in, me and other Chinese brothers will try to tell them everything about jail. If they don’t do the right thing, we will correct them...

We Almost Made It There
by Akbar M
(excerpted from pages 33-34)

We almost made it there, to the March, that is. What March? The historic Million Man March. My father and I had been planning to attend the March for a little over a month, before it took place. We had anticipated the spiritual and positive vibe the event would hold and bring out of us all, the million brothers that would attend. We knew it would reach a million.

The preparation for the March excited us to the full extent. We saved money, collected food, and inspired others to attend throughout the whole month. We had a lot of inspiration from many sisters within the community as well as my mother and aunt, who actually bought the tickets. The excitement grew to the point we actually visualized ourselves there.
The day of the March was a day I felt intense pride for my black heritage. The bus was said to leave at one A.M. We arrived at the bus site at midnight with tickets in hand....

Incarcerated Fathers
by Lamont B
(excerpted from pages 36-38)

Let me tell you this story. I have a friend who has been incarcerated for six years. When Ernest was first arrested his child was 1-year-old. As it is known, all human beings need to be loved by their parents. Ernest loves his child, but since he was incarcerated things changed. His baby’s mother being lonely felt she needed someone to be with. She started seeing another man who was there when she needed him and would give love to her child. Kevin became closer and closer to Renee and her child. A year went by and little Lenny began calling the mother’s boyfriend “Daddy.”
As time went by the baby developed certain illnesses. Because of the seriousness of the illnesses Lenny was hospitalized. Kevin would visit Lenny with Renee and show that he cared about him. Kevin taught Lenny how to make friends and be responsible. Inside, Lenny was feeling a bond between him and his new found father.
After six long, lonely years Ernest was released from his incarceration. He came home eager to see his son, but did not know what was going on with Lenny, Renee, and her boyfriend. He knocked on the door and was surprised, not knowing who the man was that answered the door.
“May I ask who you’re looking for?” Kevin asked.
Ernest replied, “I’m looking for my baby, Lenny and his mother Renee.”
“Who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m Lenny’s father.”
As they continued to talk, Kevin and Ernest became angry and began to argue....

A Trip Down Memory Lane
by Gary B
(excerpted from pages 40-3)

....Now I’m facing life imprisonment, no parole. My mother always told me there’d be days like this so now I know what to expect. Being incarcerated ain’t easy, especially when you have a smaller brother growing up in your footsteps. I tell him to go to school and stay away from drugs. I even let him know that he would be a fool to get caught up in the same situation like me and my pops did. Now he’s living with his girl having kids, struggling for survival the right way, because he realizes that you can’t take money with you when you die. In reality, life in the fast lane does not pay. All the cars, drugs, women and money that I had can’t help me now ‘cause there’s nothing I could possibly do with them in jail....

Poverty and hunger makes it hard to learn. It’s hard to concentrate on learning when your stomach is empty and growling from hunger. Working with New York City students presented challenges similar to those I faced as a Peace Corp Volunteer teaching in Liberia before war ravaged that country.

As educators, the Waterways teachers guided their students’ passage through the world past daily terrors and uncertainties along the path of a curriculum of expressive writing and publishing. Students wrote about their families, neighborhoods, and schools.

The Streams anthologies presented in print the students’ observations in their own words. The opening section of Streams 10 was titled, “Songs and Stories.”

Music
by Starr
(from page 2)

Music is art.
Music tells stories.
Music expresses feelings;
Whether happy or sad.
Music deals with emotions;
Feelings good or bad.
Music is joyous.
Music is sober.
Music is jive.
Music is soap to wash away tears.
Music is a society
Dealing with life and death.
Music is the jewel of my life.

Streams 10

The Cosmic Streams and Rhythms IV

2011-05-30T10:55:00.001-04:00

Teaching is passing on the culture and facilitating the present moment. It is the relationship between experience and innocence in the classroom. It is an exchange between maturity and youth, knowledge and ignorance, understanding and anxiety.

Teaching is also helping students acquire the tools to question. Students, who are taught a system of critical ideas, can use their own judgment to critically examine the concepts that are being passed on.

Children want to believe. They learn from their peers and the adults around them. They learn to doubt and discern. They cope with disillusionment. They say to their teachers, “Adults shouldn't tell children lies.”

The Principal
by Mary Clark

Venetian blind poses, Venetian blind blues.
A life grew smaller behind them, trying to see through
engulfed in a large leather chair, made of men,
I waded into his ice-sea blue eyes.
What are we going to do with you? he asked.
Throw me back. My father, who art in this world,
outside this school beyond my understanding,
I am a girl-child waiting to be born.

Poetry brings the experience of life outside the school into the classroom. Recently, a student I worked with fifteen years ago, called after a fire destroyed his home. He wanted to know if I had kept copies of his poetry book. Barbara and I found the original mechanicals and printed a copy for the student.

Summer
by Nancy Montalvo

Summer tastes
like a wet, juicy
watermelon slice
running down one’s
mouth as if
struggling
to remain inside
sweeter than an apple,
cooler than ice.
Summer smells like
suntan oils:
musky,
pungent,
promising gold.
Summer sounds like bells
bringing ice cream, as children
fight on line:
vanilla cone
sprinkled with goodness
inside.
Summer brings
excitement
to the children running
through the sprinklers
playing Catch & Kiss
as the others
play Hide & Seek;
drinking each other,
laughing
with the
sun.
Meanwhile
the cool moon
slowly
creeps
from behind
staring
in your eyes,
running
with fright
just to be
on time.
(Streams 9, page 123-4)

Streams 9

The Cosmic Streams and Rhythms III

2011-05-02T09:50:00.001-04:00

“Soul and Symbol,” the title of part 3 of Streams 9 (1995), relates to the heuristic elements of transcendence and symbolism.

“All the bright lights and bells
are yourself returning
from wandering.”
Mei Mei Berssenbrugge
Book of the Dead, Prayer 14

Poems exist apart from the poets: “For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson “The Poet”

In Celestial Pantomime: Poetic Structures of Transcendence, Justus George Lawler wrote, “poetic patterns are . . . (the poet’s) own unthematized and spontaneous response to the same reality that mystified primitive man.”

In a Minute
by Robert B. Feliciano

In a minute a world could end
Yet I strive to live and stay alive
Each day is another adventure in the worst weather
In a minute two people fall in love
Or shove one another aside as the daytime
Sky slides to the west
I’m not the best
But in a minute anything could happen
A minute is all I really need to keep alive
And above the knees
(Streams 9, page 102)

Reflections
by Isamar DeJesus

When I look in the mirror
What is it I see
A girl who lost almost everything
Her heart was all bruised
Her mind was confused
A life filled with only despair
When I look in the mirror
What is it I see
A girl who found hope
So that she can cope
Her mind is steady
Her heart willing and ready
When I look in the mirror
I see all that was and is
A reflection of me!
(Streams 9, page 118)

“The map is not the territory,” is a General Semantic axiom.

The map is a tool for the wanderer; and it furthers the understanding of the world for those who do not travel.

Rachel Lauer was a strong influence in the development of Ten Penny Players’ educational program. She wrote:

“At Pace University, New York, we have incorporated critical thinking into a program called Roots of Knowing. Our objectives are (i) to offer a framework of universal concepts that unify the disciplines and (ii) to show how these concepts can help people process personal and social events throughout life.”
A meta curriculum based upon critical thinking

These universal concepts became the prototype for Ten Penny Players’ Seven Heuristic Elements of Poetry. Our objectives were (i) to offer a framework of critical concepts that unify the poetry from all our students and (ii) to show how these concepts can help teachers across the disciplines present poetry to their students.

Dream Drifter
by Dervis Joyner

I dream and often get caught
up in what I’m dreaming about. Sometimes
I mistake my dreams for reality. Could
it be that what I dream about has
not yet happened, but I saw it before
time?
If so, it’s not a dream anymore
It’s a vision. Or is it? I often
drift too deep into my mind, sometimes
it feels like I can’t come back, but
I do not yet know myself, why is that?
I ask the same question
over and over again, Who am I?
But I don’t get a reply, sometimes
I wonder if I’m all alone.
(Streams 9, page 119)

What I Seem to Be
by Jamel Williams

I seem to be an R&B singer,
But really I am a hardcore underground rapper.

I seem to live life in a dark alley,
But really live life as a mystery.

I seem to be a 1950 Nova,
But I’m really a 1995 Lexus Coup.

I seem to be Christmas,
But really I’m Halloween.

I seem to like it here,
But really I want to go home!
(Streams 9, page 133)

Streams 9

The Cosmic Streams and Rhythms II

2011-04-28T21:44:00.000-04:00

In the second section of Streams 9, “Passion and Paradise,” the student work related to the Heuristic Elements of catharsis and sublimation.

Aristotle wrote of catharsis as a cleansing and purging of emotions:

“An emotion which strongly affects some souls is present in all to a varying degree, for example pity and fear, and also ecstasy. To this last some people are particularly liable, and we see that under the influence of religious music and songs which drive the soul to frenzy, they calm down as if they had been medically treated and purged.” (Politics 8.7.3-5)

and

“Tragedy, then, is the imitation of a good action, which is complete and of a certain length, by means of language made pleasing for each part separately; it relies in its various elements not on narrative but on acting; through pity and fear it achieves the purgation (catharsis) of such emotions.” (Aristotle’s Poetics chapter 6 1449b)

Freud adopted “catharsis” in reference to the means by which he and his early colleague and mentor, Joseph Breuer, addressed the emotional distress of their patients. In “The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis” (1910), Freud wrote:

The cathartic treatment, as Breuer had made use of it, presupposed that the patient should be put in deep hypnosis, for only in hypnosis was available the knowledge of his pathogenic associations, which were unknown to him in his normal state. Now hypnosis, as a fanciful, and so to speak, mystical, aid, I soon came to dislike; and when I discovered that, in spite of all my efforts, I could not hypnotize by any means all of my patients, I resolved to give up hypnotism and to make the cathartic method independent of it. (American Journal of Psychology, 21, 181)

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud developed his concept of sublimation:

“Sublimation of instinct is an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an important part in civilized life. If one were to yield to a first impression, one would say that sublimation is a vicissitude which has been forced upon the instincts entirely by civilization.” (James Strachey translation. W. W. Norton & Co. 1962 page 44)

Sublimation requires discipline. Adolescents are compelled to attend school. In the Streams anthologies they articulated their emotional responses to time spent in classrooms furthering the progress of civilization. They also wrote of their sublime expectations and their hopes for a better world.

Fears, What Are They
by Lloyd Pulley

Fears can come at any time or any place.
Fears are hidden within your mind and soul
and can take over your heart.
Fears are like winds
that blow through the trees
on a cold winter day.
So you ask me what fears are?
I ask you the same thing,
because the fears in my heart no one can answer.
(Streams 9, page 59)

Pride
by Steven Evangelista

I seem to be an uneducated person,
But deep inside I am willing to understand
and look forward to learning.
My pride makes me hide away the shame,
But if I never learn then I’ll remain the same.
I don’t want to remain confused and ignorant
Just because I want to impress you,
So I guess I got to move on,
‘Cause I got much work to do.
(Streams 9, page 62)

I’m Going to tell You About the Way I Feel (excerpt)
by Devin Williams

The way I feel
is like when I go some where
I feel funny
because I’m around different people
When you are home
You are around your family
You feel safe
Because you know that’s where you are loved
But the real reason why I’m telling you this
Is because I feel someone
Has to know I feel like that
I have no choice
But to do what other people tell me
I mean if I do something
I have to tell my mom or my boss
I just don’t feel free
(Streams 9, page 63)

A Kiss
by Lashawn Richardson

You walk up to me
Your tongue I can taste
You gently put your arms
Around y waist
You pull me close
Your body to mine
Working very slowly
Just taking your time
Around your neck
My arms are placed
Then we stare at each other
Face to face
When both our lips
Finally meet
The warmth
Then tenderness
Is oh so sweet.
(Streams 9, page 65)

A Better Place
by James Williams

Wondering about the love I have
In my heart and soul
Sitting here watching children
Till the day that I grow old

In life there are lots of struggles
Little kids without any dreams
Let’s make the world a better place
Stop killing human beings

Our future depends on children
On each boy and girl
To grow up and change the world
From negativity to positive thoughts

Education in a society like this
Is most definitely a must
Remember we are in our children
And in God they’ll surely trust
(Streams 9, page 82)

Peace
by La-Taameka Bradford

Increase the peace,
Live in it or rest in it I always say
For we may not live to see another day
With so much violence going on,
My time is decreasing but I’ve got to hold on,
Peace is the word that we need to spread
Live in it, or rest in it,
You choose the way.
(Streams 9, page 91)

Streams 9

The Cosmic Streams and Rhythms

2011-04-24T20:03:00.001-04:00

“Power lies in understanding that all of life is a unified whole; that human kind is part of nature which is part of the cosmic streams and rhythms. Survival and growth accrue from suspending personal ego boundaries by noticing and resonating with on-going harmonies, by accepting insights from the well-springs of ‘higher consciousness’ or ‘spiritual’ sources.” - Dr. Rachel Lauer, Director of the Strauss Thinking and Learning Center at Pace University.

The power of the Streams anthologies was to reach out to, and bring together, the wide range of students attending school in a variety of settings: prisons, GED programs, New Vision schools, Outreach programs, vocational training sites, homeless shelters, college preps, pregnant and parenting programs, literacy centers, group homes, service learning sites, ESL programs, community centers, hospital sites, and theater schools.

A unifying aesthetic arose from our work with Dr. Lauer and General Semantics which we called 7 Heuristic Elements of Poetry. The Elements presented a means to assess all writing, maintain a constructivist approach to expressive writing, and teach about historic developments in literary criticism.

Beginning with Streams 9, the editorial choices and organization of anthologies were influenced by a progression through 7 Heuristic Elements of Poetry. The Elements were paired to allow for 3 sections with the final element (publication) embodied by the book itself.

The first section, Music and Memory (for mimesis) contained poems that addressed music as a theme, were distinguished by a rhythmic pattern, and imitated or reconstructed reality from memory.

Students imitated vernacular. They spoke or wrote in the voice of another. They verbally constructed a “faithful reproduction.” Mimesis in education would be “learning by rote.” Mimetic poetry manifests the memorable properties of things, animals and people.

Fatima Coleman, in her poem “Uncle”, wrote:

I will never forget his silver gray hair,
Always neatly combed in place.
There were three beautiful generations
All over his precious face.
He was so sweet and kind, nice and wise.
He was the greatest.
I was a young girl in my early teens, he said,
“Now baby listen. Things aren’t always the way they seem.”

He would always sing the same song to me.
He would always say,
“Take your time, young girl. Don’t you rush to get old.
Take it in your stride, baby. Just live your life.”
(excerpted from page 39)

Streams 9

Listening to the Waves IV

2011-04-20T15:29:00.002-04:00

In his NOTES ON WATERWAYS PEDAGOGICAL PROJECT, Richard Kostellanetz wrote:

“The first steps to distinction usually come from doing what others cannot—in sports with technique, in art with form. The fundamental negative rule is transcending easy moves, whether with one’s body or with words. Obvious sentiments or clichés are finally no more acceptable than dribbling directly at the basket. There is a hint of such development in Matthew Rydell’s text “Panorama” on p. 127 of the Streams 8 anthology (1994), where a skinny vertical text becomes a counterpoint to more extended horizontal lines. “

In the same volume, Zenzilé Green concluded her poem, Selfless (on pages 128-30), with these lines:

The poetry flows
from my eyes
an unbearable monsoon.
Unstoppable
overwhelming pressure.
So I plaster on
a feelingless mouth
of burgundy matte
and freeze the sadness
with foundation #6.
Hardened mascara
dark lines under my eyes
covered completely
by Korean sunglasses
a mask of effortless cold
made more effective by life.

Streams 8

Listening to the Waves III

2011-04-18T18:51:00.001-04:00

In 1994, a number of NYC’s Alternative High Schools and Programs were designed to teach ESL to students from immigrant families. The STREAMS anthologies welcomed their participation and published the students’ poetry in English and their native languages. Contributions came from schools such as Liberty High School on 18th Street, the International School at Laguardia Community College in Queens, and the Lower East Side Prep just north of Manhattan’s Chinatown.

These poems touched on topics like music, love, and friendship. Many young poets wrote of the loss of friends and family. The theme of leaving home was common to many. Breaking away from tradition and facing a new world with different values has been a theme for teens around the world, since the end of tribal society.

Occasionally we scanned in the handwritten poem, as in the following Asian and East European poems from STREAMS 8.

American Moon by Phan Thuan translated by Ai-Jen Lin Chao

American moon,they say, is the roundest one,
But have they experienced it?
Do they know that the U.S. is:
The paradise of the teenager,
The battle field of the middle-ager,
The hell of the elderly?

If you are not the one who won the battle,
Do you still consider the moon of America
The roundest one?

What a bliss it is to be a teenager in the U.S.!
Every day is a joyous day.
How exciting life is to them,
Can’t compare even with paradise.

What a torture is is to be a middle-ager in the U.S.!
Work! Work! Work! Day by day.
Rent! Bills! Making a living isn’t easy,
Not to mention the fear of being unemployed.

What a misery it is to be elderly in the U.S.
Dusk for them always comes early,
Look at the blue sky through the window
Tear by tear the nostalgic tears flow

Hoping to fly back like birds,
But utterly exhausted,
One can only watch the twilight pass away.

As you see someone succeed,
Do you know how much he paid for it?
If you are not the one who won the battle,
Do you still consider the moon of the U.S. the roundest one?
(page 38-9)

“And My Grandma Can’t Come” by Anna Zalewska

I wish I was four, no troubles, no tears,
when all I would do is play with my friends.
Those days are gone. I’m almost seventeen
and I can’t handle it any more.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I want to dance, I want to get married,
I want to have kids and live by the ocean
I wish that school would start at eleven.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I wish I could love a person like you,
someone who’s sweet and loves me, too.
But my grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I want to learn to play the guitar,
before the music becomes too loud,
I wish all the people who really don’t know me,
would keep their mouths shut
and mind their own business.

I wish my parents would realize that
I’m just a human being.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

Often I wonder if the world would be better
if I wasn’t here. No broken hearts,
no jealousy, no painful rumors.
And still nothing helps
because my grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.
(pages 139-40)

Streams 8

Listening to the Waves II

2011-04-15T17:58:00.000-04:00

The Streams anthologies gave NYC Alternative Schools and Programs a space for their students’ writing to be taken seriously. Every student had the opportunity to write a poem. They wrote out of their own experiences in urban communities. Gifted writers found their talents appreciated by a new audience.

In 1994, working with Waterways Teaching Artist, Orfelia Rodriguez Goldstein, Kimberly Robinson put together a chapbook that contained her poem, “Being Your Neighbor’s Neighbor”:

My window is open.
Quick, everyone duck ‘cause all I hear is a buck, buck.
These are sounds I’ve become accustomed to,
But should it be?
My neighborhood gave this luxury to me.
Guns--that’s not the half.
Blades scar and never take away.
Now I must fight each and every day.
Someone looked at me wrong.
Now I’ve made them look like me,
All scarred up for everyone to see.
(excerpted from p.14)

Tratia Wilson’s poem, also in Streams 8, used the experience of children in the hood to reprimand adults for the dangerous level of urban violence:

Come on it’s time to play
live as a child and try not to get hit with a stray
It’s a dangerous long road to go but we will keep striving
to be alive

People might say it’s tough and
rough living in the hood,
But look around
Open your eyes
It’s all around the way.
Kids feel rejected and insecure
That’s why you grown-ups should be
mature
(p.26)

Such strong poems carried the edition forward. The young poets were talking to their peers and their teachers

In her poem, “This Isn’t What You Want,” Chenica Lee wrote:

I can’t write what you want
I can only write what I see
What I see is pain
pain from where I live
(page 30)

Streams 8

Listening to the Waves

2011-04-13T10:33:00.000-04:00

In February 1994, Michael Mirakian, Principal of Concord High School on Staten Island, wrote “Our school has worked with the Waterways Project which annually publishes a volume of student works called Streams. This project, under the direction of Richard Spiegel and Barbara Fisher, has proven to be a most worthwhile venture. Mr. Spiegel personally recruits and guides the students. He is so well regarded for his capabilities in extracting from at risk students writings which they ever knew they had in them, that several of our English teachers eagerly await the day he is scheduled to visit us and do a guest lesson.

“I am especially pleased by the end result. To see a youngster’s face when he sees his name and work in a publication is difficult to adequately describe. Suffice it to say that it has to be one of the most breathtaking moments in any educator’s professional career.”

Later that spring, Professor David Bickimer, Director of the Promise of Learning Foundation invited Ten Penny Players’ to hold our year end poetry events at Pace University. NYSCA’s Arts in Education Program Director, Hollis Headrick, directed funds to enable Ten Penny Players to continue publishing Streams. Young Adult Librarians, Merilee Fogelsong, Mary Jane Tacchi, Sandra Payne, and Joanne Rosario included the Streams anthologies in the New York Public Library’s recommended list of books for the teen reader.

Streams 8 opened with poems addressing teenagers’ strength and vulnerability, beginning with Monique’s classic imagery --

I sat on the beach
listening to the waves
crash up against the rocks
like they were in constant battle
thinking to myself,
I am like the rocks
strong and powerful
I can withstand anything.
(excerpted from “I Sat on the Beach” p.1)

Jennifer’s poem explored her friend’s vulnerability --

You walk around
with all your organs exposed
for everyone to see
your kidneys and
your pure, pure blood
rushing through
your cellophane vessels
(excerpted from “Admiring Your Nakedness” p.3)

And Vanessa’s poem asked, “What do you write about when...

...you can’t decipher your emotions.
When your surrounding world is
confusion, and your only shield
seems to be corrupted.
When the future reflects the
Brightness of the sun, but the
Present looks as dismal as
the mud you just stepped in.
What do you write about when
Hope no longer has promise
and “Love” lost its meaning;
when “Nigga” is a
synonym for “Brother”,
and “Bitch is another word to
describe your mother;
when respect in all aspects
has gone down the drain, like
that 40 of Ides just put to your lips,
winding its way to the brain;
when “Black” has no meaning
except for a hole in the
Universe...
(excerpted from “What Do You Write About” p.11)

Streams 8

Flights and Perchings III

2011-04-09T09:18:00.001-04:00

In Streams 7, schools were discussed from varied points of view.

“I Wonder” by Sharrif

I wonder if I had never been
with the wrong crowd--
where would I be?
I wonder if I were a teacher--
what would I be teaching?
(page 45)

“The Classroom Where I am Sitting,” was Hope’s description of an alternative school housed in the New York’s South Jamaica projects:

I am sitting in the classroom at SJ40. The teacher, Mrs. Cook, has just finished explaining the lesson on the chalkboard. Now she asks questions. She explains each answer one by one and very slowly; so that she is understood.
At this time my classmates, who are four girls (including myself) and five boys, begin to get into our lesson. We each sit at our desk and think hard. There is not much talking. I hear the pencils scratching the paper. I hear pages in books turning, the fan going, and cars passing by outside. The class begins to get a little noisy because some of the students have finished.
We have many windows in our school. It looks like they haven’t been washed in a long time. The blinds are tan and dingy. In the morning the windows are open. In the afternoon all windows must be closed before leaving. Our lights look like ice trays. We have one that’s broken. Otherwise they are in good condition.
(page 60)

“School Daze” by Bell on the facing page, described a different attitude:

I hope they don’t want
much from me. I’ll give my
best; and hope they will
remember the things I forgot.
Why do I sit here? Why must
I stay? Only thing I’ve learned:
it’s not Burger King. I can’t
have it my way.
(page 61)

In "What Do I Like About Rikers Island,” Sam wrote how he felt about the school in prison:

I like school at Rikers Island because you can think and you can learn from your mistakes. I like it because you meet nice people and they care about you -- some people. If they did not care about you, they would not have a school. They would just let you kill each other. I like the people that work here because they do things that your own family would not do for you.
(page 64)

In contrast, Cindy wrote in “Children” about her father’s interest in education:

He brought my mother this country so she could make something out of herself. He found her a job and made her go to school to get her diploma. He also helped the rest of the kids to go to school. I wish I could give every child a father and mother like mine.
(page 135)

Flights and Perchings II

2011-03-22T09:26:00.001-04:00

Writers in Streams 7 looked at the subject of friendship from the various perspectives of urban adolescents.

I will always remember you
for the beautiful times
you gave me
I will always remember you
for making me feel free

I will remember you forever
my friend because
you showed me how
to be me
(Sheila, page 83)

The depth and beauty of friendship was expressed in Spanish as well as English:

Tu eres una bella persona,
importante e intersante.
Tu amor hacia los demas
es immenso y profundo
como el mar.

Tu honestidad y tu sinceridad
enriquesen dia tras dia
el desarrollo de tu vida.

Eres un buen amigo
que sirve como antidoto
a quien esta desilucionado
de lo bello de la vida.

Reconoce la importancia
de la buena educacion;
por eso te preocupa
por la superacion tuy
y de los demas.

Tu eres un ser inigualable.
Siempre esta dispuesto
a escuchar al noble,
lo mismo que al torpe.
Pues para ti todos somos
hijos de Dios.

Que Dios te bendigas siempre “Eugenio”
y que nuestra amistad
perdure por toda una vida.
(Valentin’s “Querido Amigo” and his English translation are on pages 20-1)

The difficulty of making friends was expressed in “My Point of View”

I find it hard to make friends with people
I want to be liked by everyone
I think that I’m too serious sometimes
I know that I have a good personality
I am kind and loving when I want to be
I love when I am treated equally as everyone else
I hate hypocrites who lie and deceive you
I desire love and eternal happiness
I say that I strive to get what I want
I feel that life is sometimes unfair
I dream of a better place to live in
I am going to make it against all the odds that may lie ahead.
(Sophy, page 19)

Peer support during rehabilitation was the essence of correspondence between V and Tiger: “And remember, if ever you feel messed up inside, that in V you have a friend to talk to, even if it’s only through the computer.”
(page 25)

In “My First Full-Time Job” friends helped each other find work in the city: “One summer two of my closest friends, Harrison and Mark, joined me in a hunt for jobs. Harrison and I went about canvassing Manhattan for job openings. We looked for almost any type of work except fast-food work.”
(Trevis, page 97)

Betrayed friendship, guilt, urban junkyards, greed, drugs and the unbearable weight of the paranoia dominated the narrator’s conscience in “Murder He Wrote”: “This place was known to me and my man as the car cemetery. In there was a little of something: crack bottles, needles, old rags, human waste and dead dogs that either got shot or electrocuted.”
(William, page 7)

In “An Experience That Changed My Life,” a tragedy at a celebrity basketball game in City College led the narrator to realize: “how much I took life for granted. It also helped me to understand that you should always tell the people you love how much they mean to you, because you’ll never know when they will be gone! I always thought nothing like this could happen to me, but I’m living proof that it can!!!”
(Andrea, page 13)

Streams 7

Flights and Perchings

2011-03-17T10:13:00.002-04:00

Two quotes from William James’s “The Principles of Psychology” (1890) opened Streams 7 (1993):

“Consciousness...does not not appear to itself chopped up in bits . . . A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it here after, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.”

And,

“As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is the different pace of its parts. Like a bird’s life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.”

For Ten Penny Players, the streams metaphor applied to the many different schools in NYC from which contributions to the anthology “streamed” in; particularly those schools serving students outside “the mainstream.” Over 60,000 students were attending New York City’s Alternative High Schools and Programs in 1993. The anthology contributors’ streams of thought were channeled together as a strong current.

The Streams anthologies were particularly useful for discussions during “Family Group,” a period each alternative school set aside to help students articulate and evaluate their emotions while getting support and guidance from peers and professionals. Family Group was put in place by Stephen Phillips, the superintendent of New York City’s Alternative High Schools and Programs.

Damon wrote, “Streams”

All of our emotions
go into streams.
All of it’s told.
All of it’s seen.

The stream of life,
the stream of thought,
the stream of poetry
can’t be bought
in a store
or on the shelf.
Reach for it deeply
and you will find
it in yourself.

The harmony of it
and the power it holds.
Don’t fight the power.
Be bold.
Just grasp the light,
so pretty and green.
Open your hand and see,
you’ve reached the stream.
(page 67)

Streams 7

Feelings Were So Intense 4

2011-02-18T08:44:00.000-05:00

In “Secret Dreams of Fantasy,” Donna wrote:

There’s things I want to happen
but only in my mind.
(p. 30)

And in “Education,” Moet wrote:

We need a book and a teacher to shine the light on us. Education is the key so all of us can be free. We’ve got to educate the mind and free the soul.
(p. 41)

Among the subjects addressed in Streams 6 were education, friendship, AIDS, substance abuse, and student reflections on the book itself. At Auxiliary Services for High Schools’ Saint George School, Christine was annoyed after reading aloud a correspondence in class. Her teacher and I encouraged her to write a critique. Her essay, “Critical Feelings About Streams Five” appeared in Streams.

I still can’t decipher all the reasons why my feelings were so intense. I’m sure it was a combination of many thoughts, feelings and experiences. I felt extremely impatient with the teacher. I suppose the subject matter made me look at my own life and my own experiences and mistakes. It brought up feelings of shame and stupidity. I was also very impatient with the other students in the class. They were so rude. I didn’t want to deal with any of this. These kids make so many mistakes. Things they will not be able to change. They will look back in fifteen or twenty years and see their mistakes. That look back can be very painful.

The letter from the young girl in the rehab to the teenage boy really upset me. I was thinking, “How stupid you are! How dumb you sound! What type of life are you going to have? You look up to a man who visits his son once in a while and who doesn’t emotionally or financially support this child or his mother. What’s worse, he does not even see the wrong in that. How you see this man as someone to admire, how you consider this a good parent, absolutely blows my mind. Don’t you understand? Children need so much! I guess I can’t blame you. I just hope that when you raise your own children, if you don’t think the way they speak, the way they dress, the education they have is important, please, I hope to God you have at least great maternal love for them and treat them with understanding and patience.
(p. 146)

This sixth annual anthology concluded with Shariff’s poem:

Streams is a book full of poems and rhymes,
People speak their minds and their brightness shines,
You can write about the future, present or past,
Or about your new girlfriend, or the one you had last.
It’s an expression of the mind, the thoughts that you’re thinking,
About your fun weekend or a love that you’re seeking.
Speaking of thoughts, this is mine about the Streams book,
I took one look through the pages and my brain shook.
So I said to myself, I’m a talented writer,
And this is a book that my work should be inside of.
So I gave Mr. Hejna a sample of my work and
He said, “This is great, you’re a talented man.
I’m gonna put you in the book ‘cause I think you deserve it,
A great poem artist and it’s time that people heard it.”

Streams is a book where you can write about yourself,
Your personality, reality or big dreams of wealth.
Things that you did and you now regret.
Let off steam in the Streams, that’s what it’s there for,
And if your work is good and score then write more.
One never knows you might start your fame there,
Then when you’re grown and rich in ten years,
While you’re sitting in your home thinking back you’ll say,
“If it wasn’t for Streams, where would I be today?”
Take my advice, read slow and take a long look,
Remember I said that Streams is a fly book!
(p. 147)

Streams 6

Feelings Were So Intense 3

2011-02-18T08:43:00.000-05:00

“Crime and punishment” was the subject most frequently cited in the Streams 6 index. Adolescents, writing about their experiences in 1992, helped raise awareness and the desire in local neighborhoods to address the violence and the sufferings of victims and perpetrators. A student using the pen name Poppa wrote from prison, “Now I’m here and it looks like I’m going to stay for a while. I wish I realized what lay ahead for me when I was younger. I most certainly would have changed my path in life, but it’s not too late . . . for those from B’ville. I know life has been hectic, but try to represent in a quieter way.”
(p. 36)

Marado gave a vivid picture of life after sentencing in his piece, “The Big House”:

As we got off the bus, two C.O.’s grabbed to make sure I didn’t fall. My legs were still shackled. . . we were marched to the main building. As soon as we stepped into the ‘Big House,’ the captain came up to me and said, “Boy, this is Elmira. This is not Rikers Island. Rikers Island is a playground, boy. You’re in the ‘Big House’ now.” He cursed at me and he cursed my mother and said, “If you start any trouble or sh-t, you die.”
(p. 80)

In the final section, Coping With It All, Jose Respito’s piece “A Day in the Life” described twenty four hours in the life of an incarcerated student on Rikers Island. The author transcribed a phone conversation between an inmate and his mother:

“Hi, Ma. Yeah, I’m okay, how are you? Good. Well, Ma, I just called to see how you were doing. Are you coming up to see me tomorrow? Ma, put some money in my commissary. About fifty dollars, alright? Yeah, Ma, I know you need to pay the bills, but I need money too. Okay, then just put forty dollars.” Damn! “Oh and Ma, you didn’t forget the sneakers, right? No, I don’t want Reeboks. I wanted Nikes. Forget it! Just bring the sneakers. Ma, I gotta go, okay? Love you. Bye.”
(p. 137)

The line between victim and perpetrator was easily crossed, as Jeff, a small time drug dealer, wrote in his Personal History:

I had been shot on a street called Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. I was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. There they performed surgery on me for four hours; and had to stop because of loss of blood. They had to wait until my blood rebuilt. I had already lost four pints.
(pp. 40-41)

Streams 6

Feelings Were So Intense 2

2011-02-18T08:42:00.001-05:00

Streams 6 was the first Streams with an index of authors and subjects. According to the subject index, “love” was the second most cited subject.

Un Pintor by Santa R.

Un pinto puede pintar
Una rosa y un clavel
Pero no puede pintar
El amor de una mujer.
(p.64)

(An artist can paint
a rose and a carnation
but no cannot paint
the love of a woman.)

Students wrote valentines to girlfriends, mothers, and grandmothers. They also wrote of their jealousies, betrayals, and the blues. Pedro, in his poem “Incarcerated Valentine” wrote:

“I’m afraid that when I come out you won’t be there.”
(p.72)

Streams 6

Feelings Were So Intense 1

2011-02-16T09:27:00.001-05:00

The cover cartoon drawn by “GMan” showed a hip hop character against the graffiti background of Streams 6 in bubble letters and the phrase,“Stop. Check It Out. Word!!!” The anthology represented what young people were thinking in 1992.

It opened with the poem,“Laughter” by Tiffany Knight. She wrote of Billy who confided to the narrator that

“. . . parents kicked me out yesterday,
and now I’m going to be put up for
adoption.”
(p. 7)

Unwanted children who got into trouble are a universal problem. The poem addressed the underlying drama of a young boy whose behavior led to his arrest and alienation from his parents. He was forced to live in a group home, and school continues around him. It concluded with the lines:

The rest of the gym class is
laughing at one of the kids who is
throwing rocks at a sea gull,
but Billy and I sit,
and he’s not laughing any more.
(p. 8)

Yvette’s “A Day of Birth,” described a child entering a family. The six year old narrator was awoken at midnight by her mother to watch her aunt give birth.

“She had told us to go and wash our hands and faces. Before we knew what really was going on, she escorted us to the biggest room of the house. When we entered the room, my aunt was not there yet. My mother had told us not to worry, because my aunt was outside playing basketball. She said that it helps her to reliever her labor pains.”
(p.9)

After an explaining about labor pains, Yvette wrote, “my aunt appeared and all the adults that were there helped her position herself for the birth. The midwife was cleaning the utensils and lay the sheets and clothes for her and the baby. While she was doing so, she explained to us what was happening. At first, I was scared, because you see water coming from inside of her. Then it started opening a little, and it looked kind of bluish. My aunt was making noises as if it were very painful; for some women it is, and for others not that much.

“ Anyway, I started leaving, because I was crying and scared. At that moment, I thought that my aunt was being ripped apart. My mother took me aside and said to me, Don’t you want to see how you were born also?’ So I turned back.”
(p. 10)

That was followed by Linda’s Haiku, “Sleep Baby Sleep” --

The baby’s asleep
Wrapped in his blanket so snug
Isn’t he sweet? Shhh!
(p. 12)

Streams 6

Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part vi

2011-01-29T18:15:00.001-05:00

The late Eileen Healy was an active Ten Penny Player’s board member, who we often turned to for her articulate opinions and insight. She was one of the first Easter Seal poster children and as an adult became director of New York City’s Easter Seals. A long time and well loved disability rights advocate Eileen mentored Barbara and me, as arts special educators and parents of a student with multiple disabilities. Eileen and Frieda Zames (Mathematician, author and president of Disabled In Action) encouraged us to bring the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players to Goldwater Memorial Hospital, which was the first public hospital in America devoted solely to the treatment of chronic diseases.

Our colleagues in the disability rights movement were pioneers of the independent living movement. At that time Anne Emerman was the Director of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) and Marilyn Saviola was Director of Center for the Independence of the Disabled in New York (CIDNY). Many years before, they each had been residents at Goldwater Hospital, the largest residential long-term health facility in the New York City. They were aware of the dilemma faced by residents, whose lives in an institution may have dimmed their expectations for achievement in the outside world. Our work was to give voice, enable expression and self advocacy and through publishing to get their words and dreams out of the residence to a greater audience.

Through the public school system’s special education superintendency, Waterways was able to work with hospitalized students, attending the Goldwater learning center. The students published their poetry and prose in magazines of expressive writing. The students who were hospitalized as the result of street violence were encouraged by Mayor Dinkins to give voice to their stories, and to tour city schools as advocates for reducing the level of violence in the communities.

One of the residents, Starry, had been admitted after an automobile accident that left her unable to walk. She was adjusting to the trauma, and preparing to return to the world outside the institution. Through writing and publishing she was able to communicate her concerns. In one of her poems, she wrote:

When the difficult times
Make me sigh,
I try to persevere
head up high

Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part v

2011-01-28T14:39:00.001-05:00

Over the years, Waterways would receive writing by students who had their lives changed by events in the news. “The Invasion of Grenada” related the experience from Karen’s first person point of view:

“I was born in the Virgin Island and I lived in Grenada since I was about two months old. From the time I remember knowing myself, everyone around me was very kind, thoughtful and caring. In Grenada everyone in the neighborhood is like a Great Big Family. I thought Grenada was the world’s best island.

One morning my aunt came running down the alley screaming, “Mama, mama there’s a fire in the port.” I turned the radio on and it was all over the radio. I thought it was only a fire and it would pass.

Less than two hours later I went to feed my goat and an American soldier came right out of the sand and said to me, ‘Miss this area is restricted.’ My heart dropped right out of place. I wondered what was happening. Before I knew it, troops, helicopters, and tanks were all over, and gun shots were coming from everywhere.

All the neighbors, men and women were screaming at their children. ‘Get into the house and don’t come out.’ My grandmother was terrified. She was mostly worried about me going outside and getting hurt. From my bedroom window looking out, I could see the children running, people falling and blood from the people who got shot. My aunt’s husband, who was a soldier in the army in Grenada, came home with his finger dislodged by a bullet. As days went by, all you heard was yelling, screaming and gun shots.

All you heard for five days were trucks moving about, as they picked up the dad bodies in the streets. The American Soldiers took over a bank near by, and stayed there. The government passed a curfew that no one should be seen outside after 6 p.m. or they would be shot down on sight.

I had never seen anything like it in all my life. I never did learn the purpose of the invasion. People lost their homes and some of their families in the invasion, but today Grenada is pulling itself back together as the little beautiful island it used to be.”

Streams 5

Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part iv

2011-01-28T14:31:00.001-05:00

The longest article on fatherhood in Streams 5 was “Incarcerated Dads” by Frankie P. This thoughtful meditation is an in depth analysis that includes his commentary on the importance of communication and literacy. The intelligence and candor of the author is evident. The remarkable thing is that he was able to produce this piece of writing while being incarcerated himself and that he was able to entrust his work to the Waterways teaching artist/editor, Matthew Hejna-Luque, who helped him share his message through publication:

“Being a parent in the system is very hard to deal with. Many times at night I find myself lost, deep in thought, and at the same time my peers are in the same form of thinking. What we go through on the inside can tear this world apart.

Many people out there do not know how it feels to be incarcerated. Being locked away from your loved ones and not knowing when is the next time, or if, you are going to see them really hurts. It is not a matter of winning your case. It is a matter of surviving the penitentiary. There are many fights, slashings and stabbings in the system, and you never know when it will be you. You can be the type that just wants to do your time and get out, but problems still occur. Walking with eyes in back of your head and sleeping with one eye open are some of the survival skills one learns in the system. Watching your every step puts a lot of pressure on an inmate. With all this pressure, we still have to deal with the thought of losing our families.

Many of us are afraid to return to our homes and find out that our child is calling another man, ‘Dad.’ Often we entertain the negative thought of our wives leaving with the baby to be with another man, because she needs the material things in life. Sometimes she may forget that her child has a birth father, who has feelings for his child. But we must understand that it is hard to raise a child by yourself and you do need the help of your mate.

Many times in prison we see men with renewed feelings towards their family and children. Why do we get this sudden change of how we feel towards our family? I think it’s because of the environment we are in. In here our lives are being conditioned. We are told when to eat, sleep, get up and sometimes even talk. Now we are able to appreciate the smallest things in life, such as a walk through the park and even buying a piece of candy without being restricted to eat it. Here we are able to search and find our true feelings, that we thought we never had. Is it that we never had them, or we did not know they were there? In many cases, when you do get in touch you are able to see the world in colors instead of in a black and white picture.

Being in jail, we are in a position where we must hide our feelings, because that is taken as a weakness. Why do we take kindness for weakness? Is it that we are trying to hide our weakness by using manipulation, being demanding and rebellious? We use manipulation as a survival skill to get what we want when we want it. Being raised on the streets, many of us learned this as a means to survive. We are able to detect a weakness, and once we find it, we will play upon it. Now that we are locked up, we are subject to use it again. When he speaks over the phone, the man may hide his true feelings. He calls his wife and tells her, “I love you.” They respond joyfully and that is when we begin to manipulate for things that we want (clothes, money, etc.). Sometimes we do not see what we are doing until after it’s done.

I would feel very stupid calling my wife and telling her what she may and may not do. Instead of calling shots, I think we should tell our wives what and how we feel, and ask for her aid; because we are going through a crisis at this moment. The plain truth is that we need them by our sides to help us deal with our time.

I think that communication plays a very important role in families, nowadays. If you are short on talk with your family wherever you are I believe you are sure to lose them. Hiding your true feelings from them makes them feel as if they’re being shut out. If you do not communicate, they will never know how you feel towards them, and they may even think you don’t love them.

What do your feelings have to do with them? Your feelings have a lot to do with your family, because you are part of their lives. A very important part, may I add. Just as you like to know what happened today, in the course of a day, when you get home from work; little do you know that they would like to know how your day went, too.

There may be many fathers lacking education. It may be hard for them to write a letter. So the only thing they have is a phone call. I believe that if they would really like to communicate with their families that much; I think the adult, as well as the adolescent fathers should get together and help each other, because they can identify with one another. So I advise you, if you cannot write too well, ask a friend to help you. But then we have the rebellious type, that feel that they are being condemned if someone offers them help. Your child hearing from you is more important than anything else in the world. Whatever means of communication there is, I am going to write, call, talk and even scream to let my family know that I love them!

What kind of responsibility did we have, as fathers, on the outside? To be honest with you, I, myself, being a father, had some kind of responsibility, but I did not take it seriously, as I should have. But many of us just made a mistake in our lives, and should have thought about our children and future instead.

When most of us were out in New York, we thought that putting food in our baby’s stomach, clothes on his or her back, or even a roof over his or her head, was enough; but in reality, it wasn’t. A child needs more than just objects in its life, and that thing it needs is love. Now you know how much your baby means to you, so imagine how much your time and love means to your baby.

In a place like this, we are able to see the many sides of various subjects. But when we were in New York, we took our freedom for granted, and look where it got us; to this terrible place with cages that were supposed to be for animals. So we must not let it get us down, because no one is accountable for actions but ourselves. Instead of wasting our time, thinking and hurting, we must do something positive. Don’t let it go to waste, because you can expand mentally from an experience like this.

What I do sometimes to alleviate the pain, is I set off to a distant land, a place that I created in my mind to think of nothing but positive thoughts. What I must remember is that I must not let any negative thoughts of any kind enter this little place in my head, because it will destroy me mentally.

If one of us is to get ten years or more, and you have a child of two years or older, imagine the attitude when you do return to her after all those years. This is not the baby that you changed his or her diapers for. This is now a young individual, who can think, talk and do for him or herself. So imagine the response when they find out you are their father; and after so many years of incarceration, you come back to provide for them. It is going to be hard for them to accept you, and for you to accept them, because first of all, who knows who? If one of us, young fathers, is facing a lot of time, I think a good idea would be to approach your child as if he or she were your friend, and after a sufficient amount of time, tell them who you really are. If they do not accept you as their father, they may be able to accept you as a very close friend. I know you will feel hurt by knowing this, but you must remember, we did this to ourselves. So let’s try and work it out to the best of our ability.

Yes, we love our children! But how much? That is the question that remains in the heart and mind of the mother as well as the child when he/she gets older and finds out that their father is locked up. So take a look at yourselves, guys, and tell me what you see. If you are given a second chance to return to the streets, I hope you now know what you must do to keep your child where you want him/her, and that is very close to your heart and by your side.

Will you be able to face your child when he/she gets older?

Streams 5

Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part iii

2011-01-26T12:41:00.000-05:00

We had previously published writing by teenage mothers. Streams 5 took the theme a step further. It explored the theme of role models with writing about and by teenage fathers. In her poem “A Good Father” (p.44) directed at young fathers, Keesha expressed her feelings:

I think a good father should be made up of many aspects.

He should be like a recipe: 100 oz. of Love
Love should be like feelings. When the baby is hurting it should hurt you.
When he is happy you should be happy.
You should be able to understand most of his feelings.
You should enjoy things like a first step.

Love includes all of the other aspects of the recipe: 100 oz. of Understanding
Understanding when the baby does bad things.
You should understand instead of wanting to throw the baby down or beat him. Understanding is knowing the baby cannot do what you want him or her to do.
He can only do what he knows from instinct.

100 oz. of Time
Time should be spent with the baby as much as possible.
Spend enough time with the baby so the baby knows who the father is;
and also knows the father loves the baby.
You shouldn’t just come around when you feel like it.

100 oz. of Support
Support should be helping out; helping with pampers, milk and clothes;
helping out with things like baths and washing hair.
Moral support is also good because it encourages a child.
A great father should love his child as much as possible...
even more than he loves himself or just as much.
This is because the baby is here; so it is the father’s job to love it.

There is no such thing as a perfect father. But so far I am lucky.
My baby’s father does as much as he can, whenever he can.
There is nothing more I can ask for.

Though, Roy doesn’t see himself as a role model, his narrative, “My Experience as a Teenage Father” (p.52) expressed the difficulties he encountered grappling with responsibilities:

What is it like to become a father when you are a teenager? That question never troubled me, until I was 16 and my girlfriend told me she was pregnant. A lot of things flashed through my head, like I am a child myself. Can I take the responsibilities that lay ahead of me? When I got over the shock that I was going to become a father, I thought of the fun that I would have to miss, like not playing basketball with my friends in the park or going to parties on the weekend. But I also thought of the fun I would have raising my own child, like going for a walk in the park on Sunday.

Still, the worst part was telling my parents that I was going to become a father. I thought my mother was going to kill me, because she always taught me to have safe sex and talked about the use of a condom. Well, they didn’t take it as bad as I thought they would. My mother sat down with me and my girlfriend, T, to talk about OUR “responsibilities” together. She said (I quote her words), “You two made it together, and you two take care of it together.” Me, my dad and T’s father had a good talk about my future, the baby’s future and T’s future. My girlfriend’s mother lightened up a lot after four months into her being pregnant.

The problem that I had was that, instead of having a job, I was dealing drugs. Me and T talked about selling drugs. She asked me to stop once the baby was born. I told her I would. As time went on, I started to make mo’, mo’, mo’ money, and I could not stop, because I had a type of attitude about wanting my child to have everything that I didn’t have when I was a kid. Anyway, the baby was not born, yet. I was saving money like crazy now and buying my girlfriend maternity clothes. As the months went by, I was getting more anxious about the baby.

Now it was November 23, 1978. The day started as usual. I went downstairs to work out in the basement of my house. Then the phone rang. It was my mother telling me to come pick up something she had just bought. So I went to pick up the package. As I was leaving my mother’s job, my beeper started to beep. I looked at the number. It was my girlfriend, T. She was always beeping me, so I didn’t have to respond to the number at first. Then she beeped me again. This time I answered her call. When she picked up the phone she cried that she was in pain. She said to me, “It’s time to have the baby.” I panicked, then got hold of myself. Then I drove to her house. She was sitting downstairs, crying in pain. I told her to take a deep breath, so she would calm down.

On the way to the hospital, I was scared that she was going to have the baby in the car. We finally reached the hospital. I didn’t know what to do first. I got her a wheelchair. I pushed her into the emergency room. Then I told the doctor she was having a baby. He said, “I can see that.” He looked at me funny, and I looked at myself and realized that I was still in my workout shorts and tank top. I cleaned up, so I could go in the delivery room with her. Four hours later, my son, Anthony, was born.

I wrote this on November 20, 1990, in Rikers Island Correctional Facility; three days before my son’s birthday. This is the first birthday that I’m going to miss and hopefully my last one. I feel really f***ed up that I’m not going to be there on his third birthday on this earth. (The day that I got arrested, my girlfriend told me not to go to the spot, but I went anyway. To this day I think that if I would have listened to her, I would be home today).

I feel that this is my last time in jail, because I want to make a good example for my son. I don’t want him in a place like this, or to go through what I have experienced.

Streams 5

Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part ii

2011-01-25T15:49:00.001-05:00

The Streams anthologies were used in classrooms where teachers were encouraging students to write by emphasizing the relevancy of books. In the Spring of 1991, Lucy Kuemmerle, a reading teacher, wrote “What Do Kids Like to Read” for Options: the newsletter for the office of Alternative High Schools and Programs. In her article she stated, “I would never insist that a kid like something because I chose it; they are encouraged to say what they like and what they don’t like -- and why.” She added:

One more important thing which kids love; they love anything written by other kids. They pay a lot of attention to each other’s writing. The best source of student writing is Streams (already up to four volumes), published by the Waterways Project. Copies of Streams vanish as fast as I get them in the classroom. Filled with stories, poems, letters by teenagers, they speak with absolute authority and immediacy to all other teenagers. They feel they could have written each piece; they are often freed by this strong identification to start writing themselves, and to be struck by discovering that they, too, have a voice.

The correspondence section of Streams 5 was followed by Denise B.’s poem, “Love”:

To build upon love,
you need a foundation.
So let’s start now,
with a little communication.

Rudy Rodriguez was recommended to Waterways by Jerry Long, the Assistant Principal for Curriculum Development at Auxiliary Services for High Schools (ASHS). Rudy was a paraprofessional at ASHS who had attended the Roberto Clemente Center in the South Bronx. He visited other ASHS programs around the city to encourage writing. Because of his enthusiasm, more teachers were willing to use Streams in the classroom.

ASHS students returned to class to take the GED test for a high school diploma. Although the classes focussed entirely on test preparation, many students wanted more from a school. Passing the test was not an end in itself. The diploma would not guarantee a job, but by returning to school, the ASHS students served as role models. This was expressed in Streams 5:

My Brother by Robert W.

“...My brother is sometimes a pain in the neck; and sometimes he’s not. I used to think that I hated him so much; but now I realize that he’s just a kid and that little brothers are always a pain when they’re little. I also realize that I’m his big brother and I have to be an example for him. If I show him that the things he does are not right, maybe he will not keep on the way he is.

He always says he wants to be like me. He wants to quit school like I did. He wants to start smoking like I did. I want to show him that if he quits school he will not be able to work in a good job. In other words, he can’t do much without a high school diploma.

I had to find out the hard way. When I quit school, I was working and I thought I had it made. I was making about $120 a week, nine hours a day, six days a week. I realized later on that I was not really making good money; and that I never could survive in the outside world.

Now I’m back in school to get my high school diploma, so I can get a good job; so when I have a family, I can support them. When I do get my diploma it will not be the same as going to school for four years, but at least I’m showing my brother how hard it is to survive in the real world...”

and how relevant books are.

Streams 5

Renewed Feelings (Streams 5) -- part i

2011-01-24T15:13:00.001-05:00

Streams was intentionally changing the character of the usual high school creative writing anthology. Instead of declaring the writing to be the best of the brightest, we were publishing a representative sample from the alternative high school sites Waterways visited. During the course of the year I motivated as many students as I could reach to attempt as much writing as possible. The material was first published by Barbara and me in photocopied site based magazines. By mid-February, we would begin to choose material from each site for the annual anthology based upon feedback from colleagues and students. As editors we were consciously developing a format that would help teachers present the writing to future classes.

Waterways was given the opportunity to mold a literature for a generation of New York City alternative high school students. Previous generation of at risk students had been given the option of leaving school. We were part of an effort to reach out to such students and encourage them to stay in school in the hope they would earn a diploma.

Not all students see education as the key to their success. They have to be convinced that reading and writing matters. We hope such skeptical students would find Streams relevant and want to own books written by peers. Our program published writing by students the traditional schools turned away. The impoverished, the school phobic, the rebellious, the sick, and the learning disabled, whose voices uttered the small cries of the human heart.

On the front cover of Streams 5 were two drawings -- one of a young adult and one of a child. The young adult is seen in silhouette wearing a heavy gold chain and carrying a Gucci jacket over his shoulder. The child, wearing earrings, a bracelet, and rings, is lacing up a sneaker, way too large for him. He’s trying to fill the shoes of his older brother.

The anthology began with a computer based correspondence between students who were attending classes provided in rehab programs by Offsite Educational Services (OES). The students wrote on Commodore 128 computers and saved their files to five inch floppy disks. Carolyn Green, the Waterways teacher, carried the discs to other OES sites:

Dear Pen Pal,
Hi, my name is Muneca. I am 20 years old and my height is 5’”. I am 125 pounds with green eyes, light brown with blonde hair...

Muneca received a response:

Hello Muneca,
My name is Trick Daddy. I am 18 years of age. I am six feet four inches tall; with dark brown eyes and naturally curly hair. No jerrycurl juice. I look Puerto Rican but I’m not...

Sticking out the program was a fundamental challenge to the students in all the rehabs. Muneca wrote back:

Hello, pen pal. I hope that you are all right and hanging in there. I say this because I heard that you and your friend were going through some changes. I hope that you hang in there, because leaving is not the move anymore. Staying and sticking it out means that you are very strong and able to deal with your problems.

In the next letter, Trick Daddy, shared some personal history:

I have a six month old son, but I’m not with the baby’s mother. Why? We don’t seem to get along any more, but I still see my son!!! By the way, my son looks just like his daddy; light skin, six feet four inches tall (just kidding!). But he’s handsome like me! Let me stop.

Muneca stopped writing for a few weeks. She was barred from writing by the rehab program. She finally explained to her pen pal that “I can’t write because I condoned my ‘supposed to be’ friend’s guilt; and a little of mine.”

Trick Daddy was supportive:

“...I know the situation you are going to be dealing with. I know what your state of mind must be like right now! But you got to be strong, as you encouraged me to do. I know you’re on a learning experience, but you wanna know something? It still doesn’t change how I feel about you, or how I look at you!! Please! Don’t feel guilty about the situation, because it happened to me before when I was in daytop’s upstate treatment. It will only make you a stronger woman. Notice I said that you are a woman; because you are gonna stick this out, right? I have confidence in your abilities, too! As a person once said to me, An obstacle is not the end. It’s a new beginning.”

That correspondence ended abruptly when she left the program. In the following correspondence between 18 year old Charles and 15 year old Missy, Charles wrote:

“I do have a son, who turned six months old a couple of weeks ago. But me and my baby’s mother are no longer together. Why? Because she lies about the little things like bringing my son over to see his father. I only associate with her to see my son. She had her chance to bury the hatchet! But I still respect her as I would any woman.”

Missy responded:

“I can understand where you are coming from with your baby’s mother. I used to be with a guy who was (and still is) a pathological liar. At least you aren’t just a slam bam, thank you ma’am type of guy. I like a guy who takes care of his. I know so many girls who got pregnant and the guys left them out there cold.”

Their correspondence continued through the Christmas. Charles wrote:

“My counselors expect me to do about 18 months or better!?! What I’m saying to myself is -- they got to be out of their cotton pickin’ minds!! I can’t see myself being here all that time!?! In fact, sometimes I feel like leaving! A lot of times I feel like leaving! But knowing that I’ll get a letter from you; it keeps me here.”

Streams 5

Martin Luther King Jr: Service Learning, Change and Poetry

2011-01-17T08:26:00.004-05:00

When Martin Luther King was assassinated, the school year began with teachers on strike in New York City and Senator Eugene McCarthy challenging a sitting president; it ended with the deaths of Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy. I was working with an after school program in New York City’s South Jamaica Houses, and accepted an invitation to become a Peace Corp Volunteer teaching high school in Buchanan, Liberia, West Africa.

Twenty years later, in 1988, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for Nonviolence, a state agency lead by Harry Belafonte under Governor Mario Cuomo, presented workshops throughout New York. The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players hosted a series of these workshops at Liberty High School on West 18th Street in Manhattan. We also sponsored additional workshops down the street at the offices of the Superintendent of Alternative High Schools and Programs located in the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities. The workshop leaders, who had worked with Dr. King in the sixties, explained how he acted as a catalyst to cause change in the communities he visited.

Too often education becomes a game for winners and losers. Tests award and fail students. But our society can accomodate all its members and find merit in each if teachers would pause to listen and respond to their students (who would learn to write better because their teachers were reading and responding to the student writing). We wanted to enable communication, a rare thing. The Waterways teachers who visited school sites thus also acted as catalysts by publishing students’ expressive writing and poetry that resulted from the classroom discussions and reflections of all students.

Administrators at the superintendency of New York City’s alternative high schools asked us to develop a service learning component for one of its programs, New York City Vocational Training Center (VTC). VTC had grown from a cohort of industries, hospitals, nursing homes, and unions that provided internships at their own locations for vocational and special education students aging out of the school system. VTC provided an academic component at each site for its students. The cooperating agencies facilitated job coached hands on training for the VTC students at their locations. Through the work of the licensed academic and vocational teachers and the mentors at the cohort of cooperating businesses, students were helped to gain a GED, IEP or High School diploma while at the same time learning job related skills that would help them gain employment after leaving VTC.

Ten Penny Players’ writing and peer publishing curriculum enabled all participating students to share their reflections through the expressive writing that we published . Regularly scheduled ‘reflection’ is an important component of Service Learning. VTC and all the Alternative schools and programs already practiced ‘reflection’ only it was called Family Group. In this regularly scheduled practice students reflected on their activities and the challenges faced daily in the work site or at home. Because reflection was already part of the VTC program we were able to acknowledge it as both an accepted Family Group practice and as a Service Learning component. What was familiar, also was new, and therefore possible to develop into a formal Service Learning curriculum that met both Department of Education and the Governor’s Service Learning criteria and standards and didn’t cause formal grievance from the teacher’s union, parents or students. A win win for everyone including Ten Penny Players as it enabled the students to write and be published as part of our program.

--by R. Spiegel & B. Fisher

Learn and Serve 2001 Celebration

http://www.tenpennyplayers.org/CurriculaSL.html

Revealing Thoughts and Ideas

2011-01-10T10:18:00.002-05:00

Alternative high schools provided a safety net for adolescents tripping on the high wires of institutional education. Staten Island’s largest alternative high school, Concord, was notably represented in Streams 4. The publication opened with Candice’s “What Freedom of Speech Means to Me,”

Freedom of speech is
really the freedom of expression,
to completely be
what you want to be.

In 1990, there were fourteen interns courtesy of City as School. A student who came to alternative schools after attending Hunter College High School, used her internship with Waterways to design and print her own chapbook, which she titled, “May I See Your Poetic License, Please?” Her “Poem of Exquisite Beauty” began:

A thought:
a feeling
escapes
in a blast of pure
golden light.

Waterways offered the experience of publishing their expressive writing to all students. We created a student centered literature -- poems written by peers that we hoped would motivate more reading, critiquing, and a deeper involvement in all literature.

The Waterways teaching artists included Barbara Fisher, Carolyn Green, Alison Koffler, Linda Notovitz, Margo Mack, Mel Cohen, Ruth Wangerin, Ronald G. King, Matthew Hejna-Luque, Zoë Anglesey, Andrea Temple, Denrick Wharton, Beth Ayres, and myself. The many participating school faculty, teachers at the sites, included Paul Allison, William Almedena, Paul Auerbach, John Brathwaite, Gloria Claros, Alicia Clifford, Roger Cox, Phillip Curley, Ulises Diaz-Caolo, Neil Ende, Al Ernest, Pat Fahey, Jill Fowler-Feldman, Herb Goldberg, Ray Goldfeder, Frank Grabinsky, Nancy Hope Lowens Iscaro, Jane Kreinik, Builder Levy, Henry Lyons, Diane Mechanic, John Murray, Janet Nicodemas, Richard Nisa, Diego Rios, Pat Ryan, Raul Seda, Ron Smolkin, Peter Spiro, Vasso Thomas, Geneva Vera, Brenda Watts, Kim Yarrell and Barbara Youngman. More names are on the acknowledgements page of Streams 4.

After “What Freedom of Speech Means to Me,” Streams 4 continued with Michelle’s poem, “Make That Stand” (p.3):

Why can’t we work together
to make things better?
Why can’t we join hand in hand
and make that stand
so we can live in a better land?
Let’s stand up for our rights
whether black or white.

That was followed by a collaboration between Dennis and Erica that addressed prejudice (p.4):

The word hate
is a very challenging word for minorities.
They grow up
in a world full of anger and frustration.

Forty seven different sites participated in the publications that led up to the anthology. One site with which we were to become further involved was the Frederick Douglass Literacy Center set up by Lois Rekosh through the Outreach Program in the old Boys High on Marcy Avenue. Many literacy students were forced out of local public high schools that did not want them on register, because of low skills that would bring down the entire school’s grade point average. Some literacy students were reading on first grade level. Many were learning disabled, but had never been tested. There were children, whose mothers who had left them to work as nannies in New York City.

Phoenix Academy, another early participant in our program, was in a monastery in Westchester. Its register was filled with New York City students put the students into an alternative environment, away from the mean streets of the city. Many came as alternatives to incarceration.

A poem about power came from an upstate New York school after statewide alternative conferences in the Catskills brought together alternative programs:

Power by Norman (p.5)

If I had power, the power of weather,
I would use it to bring nuclear countries
to their knees.
I would pelt them with hail,
and blow winds for days,
make them beg and plead.
Countries stricken by famine
I would rain for them.
Continents frozen by cold,
I would shine for them.

We published Claudia’s poem in Spanish:

La Guitarra Vieja

Tirada en un rincón de una vieja pared,
abandonada, triste, sola y desconsolada,
te encontre en una tarde de primavera.

Sound of the Library by Patrick C. came from a Waterways workshop in the New York Public Library:

Books are on the shelves. Dust is on
the old books that no one picks up.
People’s pencils are scribbling
so they remember what they are reading;
and that’s the sound of the library.

The student pen pal letters remained a popular feature of the anthology. Lourdes, a student at West Side High School, wrote to Rodney, an incarcerated student hoping to get his life together. The correspondence was played out in public through the publications, visible to peers, teachers, parents, and school support personnel.

The following correspondence started because Mel Cohen, a teacher working in my school, asked me if I wanted to have a pen pal on Rikers Island. I said it was okay, so we started writing. Lourdes

March 14, 1989
Dear Lourdes,
I’m gad to have received our letter. I’m doing good so far, but I could be better. I still haven’t heard about the result of the GED test, but I hope I passed it. I’m glad you like my writing. There really isn’t much to do but write and enjoy it.
Well, I’m in here for drug selling. I thought that I could make fast money without getting caught, but now I know better. It was a mistake that I made and I’m going to try to make up for all the time I’ve lost in here.
I’m not the type of guy that has been in and out of jail. This is my first time incarcerated and my last. I don’t expect a girl to wait for me, but if she really cares it would be nice.
The future is a very scary and confusing thought. It brings with it many questions that can’t be answered like: What will I be like?
Will I survive doing the right thing? Well, anyway I’ll talk to you later.

LOURDES
She was once never heard of or given a thought
A stranger to me not yet known.
Was it by accident or maybe just fate
two people revealing thoughts and ideas,
once strangers, now they are friends
She makes me forget all the trouble I’ve had
I unleashed my sorrow and fear,
she gave me warmth care and understanding.
We’ve become good friends
with a lot on our minds,
I hope she still writes me
when I’ve done my time.
Rodney

March 15, 1989
Dear Rodney,
Hi, how are you today? I am glad that you are determined to do the right thing. If you keep up thinking thinking that way you will really go places.
I am feeling very bad today. I am going through some problems this week and I feel like just going away and saying the hell with everyone, but I can’t do that, so I’m going to have to do something else to help myself. I’ll get over it I think that my cold is the main reason for my bad mood, but they’re both my problem.

HEY KID, YOU’RE GETTING OUT! You should be happy. Forget about being scared. You’ve got to think about starting over and doing the right thing, and you’ll be ok. Take my word for it!!! IF NOT, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH ME.
Rodney, you seem like a nice, sweet, and warm person, who made a mistake and who is getting his at together and who wont be back to Rikers. Right, Rodney?!
Sincerely,

Lourdes
PS I REALLY LIKE THE POEM YOU WROTE TO ME.

Responses between Rodney and I are now by phone. Rodney got out of Rikers Island on March 23, 1989. We saw each other on Easter, and we’ve become friends.
Right now, Rodney is visiting relatives, and he’s looking for a job. We talk, maybe twice a week. I’ve written him a letter and given him my home address, so maybe we’ll start writing again.

In 1990 the Howard Beach killing and the assault on the Central Park Jogger had repercussions throughout the city. There were 2 essays:

in “Let’s Stop Racism” Nathan W. wrote,

Who’s to blame?
That is the question asked when racism comes up. Today as I look back and reflect on racism, everyone is pointing the finger at each other. No one is taking a look at what part they played in the incident.
A situation that troubles me the most is that we see racism invading all areas of our life. We find racism in politics. The mayoral fight has turned into what race is more dominant rather than what each candidate can do as our mayor.

and in “Race Relations” William wrote,

All of these things get me upset. Don’t people get tired of having to deal with these issues? I don’t think it’s fair at all how the media takes these issues out of context. The neighborhoods have nothing to do with what goes on inside of them. It’s the residents and how they go about raising their children. If they allow their children to interact with friends of a different race this will allow their kids to get to know a person for who they are, not push them away because of the color of their skin.

The concluding poems in Streams 4 were by Doreena from Concord High School. In “Remember When...” she wrote:

“Remember how you felt when you just knew you were the only freshman who had the jitters, then you saw that all the other freshmen were nervous too.”1

That was followed by Who Are We?:

We are loving,
We are sensitive
And we’ve only just begun,
We are funny, unique and different,
But somehow we are one.

She concluded her poem, We Are, with the lines:

We are the strength this nation needs,
Upon our wisdom, others will feed.
We are sound of body and soul,
We shall go forth and take control.

Streams 4

Facing Frightful Feelings

2011-01-04T09:50:00.000-05:00

Youth Options Unlimited (Y.O.U.) was established as a transition school. It wanted to open a site in each of the five boroughs. Its students were preparing to return to neighborhood public schools after residing in state institutions for adolescent offenders.

Many, though not all, of the students were undisciplined, emotionally volatile, and branded as problems when they were removed from their home schools. Through their own errors of judgement, they had lost the opportunity to go to school. The new teachers were scorned by the students. They could not easily establish a setting for open classroom discussions. I came with books of peer writing. The students read Streams aloud. They were interested in Ray Batts’ tale in Bed/Stuy, Brooklyn. Teachers looked on read with their students.

Streams 1

Over the years, the teaching of expressive writing evolved in the YOU program; and Waterways eventually published individual student chapbooks for many of the students. Many students needed one to one assistance to succeed. Otherwise they would have left the social network that was the school. On their own they would choose truancy again. Waterways’ teachers could help the students achieve self expression and self advocacy.

On Staten Island, Barbara went before the local school board to ask that PS 15 be made available to the needs of the Alternative High School superintendency. She was told to forget about it. The building was only used to store custodial supplies. Alice Murray looked at the site for the YOU program and Richard Organisciak looked at the space as a possibility for the Sadie American Program an OES site for pregnant and parenting teens on Staten Island.

Waterways published, Sadie American Sighs. In 1992, the teaching artist we sent to the site was Sonya Ostrom. She was OES’s union rep and board member of the UFT’s English Language Arts Council (ELAC, an Affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English).

For that issue, Caasi wrote “The Parts of My Life” --

Some parts of my life are so much fun. One of the good things in my life is that I am pregnant, and that I have something to look forward to. This part of my life I love.

But then there is another part of me that is scared and miserable. That part is about boys. Like I have a lot of friends, but that is as far as it goes. The reason for that is because I am afraid that something may happen to him or me. The reason why I feel this way is because of what happened to my boyfriend. And I cannot go through the pain again because I am still dealing with his death.

Another reason is because no one can take the place of the boyfriend I had. He was one of the most caring guys that I knew, and he was always respectful. And we taught each other a lot about many different things. And he loved kids, he was always the cheerful type.

So that is why I don’t want to be with anyone. This is one part of my life that I won’t let anybody into. These are special parts of my life.

Sadie American Sighs (1992)

Another OES classroom on Staten Island was in the Camelot rehab, where we sent Linda Notovitz in 1989. The result was the magazine, Illusions:

The Mountains - Christina M.

Way up in my hidden paradise,
I hear the birds singing
their lovely, spring time song.
The river is slightly swollen
from the melting snow.
Everywhere, everything is in bloom.
The leaves are beginning to sprout.
The new grass shoots are showing
themselves to the world once again.
Bright flowers form a blanket over
the once white and frozen lands.
These are the signs of the coming
of the spring.

In 1990 Margo Mack, who had been teaching on Rikers Island, became a Waterways/OES teaching artist at that site. Her publication included this piece:

My First Day at Camelot by Cede 3

my first day at camelot
it was very confusing to me
worrying about what kind of
people would be there and
how they would treat me
i guess i just came here
with the wrong attitude
because when i needed
someone to talk to
people jump at my feet
this place is like a
second family to me
and i just wish it
would get the respect
it deserves.

Illusions Vol 2 No 3

The city-wide Beacon program provided after school and evening programs for communities in need. United Activities Unlimited (UAU) opened the first site on Staten Island in an elementary school (PS 18) by the West Brighton Projects. Waterways was invited to be a part of that program

Gary Gullo was our teaching artist for the after school program. He was assisted by Thomas Perry and one of our interns from City As School. A small group came together to put our a series of poetry publications with the titles, Compassion in Society and They Don’t Want Us Around: Today’s Crisis. Gary wrote the introduction:

I think the material in this magazine has entered another phase. Students with consistent commitment to the practice and class have gained self-confidence for much of the exercise and technique to fall away and reveal authentic poetry and prose. Discussion has become a regular part of the process and the experience of later century America with all its incomprehensible turnings a likely subject. As one student said, “They’ve only replaced ropes and trees with guns, clubs and wars.”
Is there racism in America? You bet there is.

Compassion In Our Society (Waterways Site Based Publication)

We were welcomed at Alternative Services for High Schools (ASHS) in the St. George School. Shelia Evans-Tranumn was Principal. John Minogue was the acting director. Margaret Friscia was the teacher on site who inspired her students to write.

The Frightful Feeling of Being Neglected in Reality (1990)

The feeling of being neglected is very sad and lonely. When I was a baby, at the age of two months, my mother decided she didn’t want me any more. She sent me away. At the age of four, I recognized the horrible feelings of neglect. Even though I did fully understand the causes and reasons, the lonely feeling was always sitting in the pit of my stomach.

At the age of six, I saw my father whom I had heard a great deal about. I told him I want to see my mamma. But, when he took me to see her, she pointed a knife at me and told me I was eating her children’s food and if I didn’t stop she was going to kill me. I was shaking like a leaf with fright. But, most of all, I was very sad, because my mama didn’t want me. My father brought me back to the place where I used to live. It was terrible. I hated that place because there was no love there.

I lived through my childhood days wondering what have I done to my mother? Why doesn’t she want me? Oh, how I wished I could change her mind so some day she would come and get me. But, she never did . Now I am twenty eight years old and still wishing she would change; hoping for the day when she will tell me she loves me. But, she never does.

Anyway, on the twenty sixth of December, 1991, I confronted her about the way she treated me. She just tried to blame it on my father, saying he never used to give her any support. In my heart, I know that’s not the truth. I told her. But, she denied it; as she always did. But, oh, how I wish and long for a mother’s love. (by Joy T.)

Reality

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXVII)

2010-09-02T08:01:00.002-04:00

CEC, a program of the alternative high school superintendency, began in 1988. It provided public school classrooms in sites like the Martinique Hotel and Saratoga Interfaith Family Inn, established by Homes for the Homeless near JFK airport in Queens.

The Waterways poetry program visited CEC sites, bringing copies of Ten Penny Players’ other alternative school site based publications and the Streams anthologies. Students at each site contributed writing for their site based publications. The Saratoga published a magazine called the Saratoga Posse and Damon Ransom contributed a poem he wrote about Streams:

All of our emotions

Go into Streams

All of it’s told

All of it’s seen

The stream of life

The stream of thought

The stream of poetry

Can’t be bought

In a store

Or on the shelf

Reach for it deeply

And you will find

It in yourself

The harmony of it

And the power it holds

Don’t fight the power

Be bold

Just grasp the light

So pretty and green

Open your hand and see

You’ve reached the stream

In 1990 Waterways visited with teachers and students at the District 75 Learning Center at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, New York’s largest long-term residential care hospital located on Roosevelt Island, where staff and students felt isolated from the rest of the city. Waterways’ writing program became part of their classroom experience; and out of that experience Ten Penny Players published a series of magazines called The Islanders. S.S. Vasaw mentioned the publication in his poem Lights of the Learning Center:

They became the special lights

of the Learning Center

of Goldwater,

when their thoughts of expressions--

words and verses

of their experiences and activities

became a reality

by the “Islander”

so as to grow as the

best world of creativity

where they share

all their sentiments

which will touch

the heart of millions.

Ten Penny Players reached out to isolated children and adolescents through the small press publishing program, publishing persons who have found themselves outside of the mainstream of society. Their expressive writing and graphic art have articulated their aspirations and frustrations.

The hopes and fears of urban children and young adults were presented in hand assembled small press publications and Streams. The books were available to readers through schools and neighborhood branches of the New York Public Library, a true treasure and a most effective means to reach out to the citizens. It is our belief that the poems and expressive writing furthered mutual understanding among many New Yorkers from different backgrounds.

The Saratoga Posse 2

D75 The Islanders Winter, 1991

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXVI)

2010-09-01T07:45:00.002-04:00

In 1989 the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players worked out of a space in Liberty High School, a transition school for recent adolescent immigrant.

Streams III (1989) contained student writing from Bayard Ruskin High School for the Humanities, West Side High School, Liberty High School, Career Employment Centers (Brooklyn Arms Hotel, Hotel Martinique, Saratoga Interfaith Family Inn, South Bronx Job Corps), Offsite Educational Services (DAYTOP, The Door, Dynamite Youth Center, El Puente, Marlborough Houses, Odyssey House, Phoenix House, PRACA, Project Contact, Queens Outreach, Samaritan Village), Rikers Island Educational Facility, Rosewood High School, and Austin H. MaCormack Island Academy.

The perfect bound anthologies included poetry and prose written in languages other than English; and writing in English about the immigrant experience.

Arad by Bogosel Florin

I’m from Arad Roumania.

I left my country in January.

When I was in my country,

I played soccer with my friends.

When it was summer and the weather was nice,

we went to the beach to go swimming.

We went to the park with bikes.

Sundays and Saturdays we went to the discotheque.

My best friend was Sorin.

He was together with me everywhere.

In school he stood with me.

If ever I had a problem he would help me.

Now I have left him.

Maybe I will never see him again.

He plays soccer for Arad’s ‘Motorul’

and goes to school every day.

I Lived in Viet Nam by My Tang

I lived in Viet Nam seven years ago.

Living in a refugee camp, life was very boring.

We had nothing to do and nowhere to go.

So many people ran away

from the refugee camp to Ho Chi Minh City

looking for a job to help their families.

Sometimes they came back.

Once a month they gave their parents

some money or some food.

Then they left again.

Now, I came from Viet Nam to America.

I don’t like it here because I haven’t any friends,

just classmates. I feel no pleasure.

I felt good in Viet Nam, although there was no freedom.

The people were most kind.

They were good to each other.

I’ve been here about eight months.

I feel some American people are cold,

but I’m not sure.

Maybe my thinking is wrong.

I will grow to like America,

because I know many teachers,

the principal and students.

Streams 3

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXV)

2010-08-19T06:33:00.001-04:00

Poetry is a primal experience as Louis Reyes Rivera explained in his essay, “Inside the River of Poetry”

‘Poetry, you see, is as old as breath itself. For when human beings across the planet simultaneously uttered that first initial sound, they gave rise to the same echo heard in the wail of every newborn child. The sound of that cry might be onomatopoeic, but its meaning is quite literal. "I am here, now!" This is the essential affidavit that serves as testament inside every person's compulsion to give voice to the voice, as condition urges vision, vision provokes thought, and thought pronounces the name of God: "I matter, too!"’

The quotation by Louis Reyes Rivera is from his essay appearing in In Motion Magazine (2002)

Students have an intrinsic desire, an impulse, to express themselves either through music, visually, kinetically, or through writing. Musician, artists, dancers, athletes and writers need a stage to practice on. That practice, including poetry and the small press experience, is sine qua non to the school’s curriculum.

Though some modern educators may wish to relegate poetry to a minor place in the classroom, it has historically assumed a larger share of attention.

Harry Smith in his essay, “Can Poets Conquer the World?” wrote that since Genesis,

“poetry was the whole world and all mysteries of being. It was the history of a people, definition of humanity, and book of knowledge; law and government, philosophy and theology, nutrition and hygiene, and guide to love. Such was true for the primal poets everywhere. This earliest literature was not only the entire character of many peoples but one of their primary entertainments too.”

In another essay “Naïve Manifesto” Smith stated,
“Our images are alchemy to transmute consciousness.”

Quotations by Harry Smith's are from the book of essays, The Word and Beyond: Four Literary Cosmologists (1982)

American educators prepare future citizens to exercise their right to free expression. Schools that teach poetry and the small press publishing experience can connect that with how students authentically learn.

Richard Kostelanetz wrote, “What Waterways does is provide aspiring writers with playing fields and thus the opportunity for informal peer review. Obviously, the young writer who wins more readers will be a bit further along, much as the young athlete who earns more fans or gets chosen first when teams are put together has accomplished a career step.”

Richard Kostelanetz' essay, Notes on Waterways Pedagogical Project, first appeared in Home Planet News (2000)

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXIV)

2010-08-18T12:08:00.002-04:00

“A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it (he will have some several causations), by way of the poem itself to, all the way over to, the reader. Okay. Then the poem itself must, at all points, be a high energy-construct and, at all points, an energy-discharge." Projective Verse - Charles Olson

The King by Chris, appeared in the first issue of Streams. Its authentic voice emerged from automatic writing done with a Commodore 128 computer in a classroom at Odyssey House.

I am a very nice person, but at times I can be a very uncomfortable person, too. So far I seem to be sticking this program out. This is my second program and I want it to be my last.

When I was out in the street I was a very vicious person. Some people can’t understand why, because I was always so nice to people. I will continue to be nice to people because it really pays in the end. I love and believe in the almighty God, my savior and creator. Without him I am nothing. I hate to say this, but I don’t have any feelings for my mother because she tried very hard to lock me up. My father who I love very dearly bailed me out many times. My sister who recently got married, lives in Brooklyn and is very happy.

I hurt my sister a great deal when she found out that I was basing my life away. Me and my sister were very tight. She was always there when I needed her, and I love her also. If something was to happen to her (God forbid!), I don’t know what I would do.

I grew up in the South Bronx. I was a hard core B. Boy. I stole, robbed, cheated, swindled, lied and hurt anyone who would get in my way while I was on my mission. I started using crack in the winter of 1984. I started selling crack in 1985 and I was making crazy money. I also had plenty of jewelry. I used to buy my ex-girlfriend a lot of gold and anything she wanted. After a while I started freebasing again. I was on my way down. I had nothing at all. I sold $1,500 worth of jewelry for $800. I took back all my girl’s gold and sold it. I sold the motor bikes I owned -- two Yamaha 100’s.

I knew I needed help and went to Florida to a rehabilitation program. I was doing so well for the six months I was there. I had plenty of jobs there. I got to know a lot of people such as doctors, lawyers, etc.

I came back to New York and I was on the streets only a month and I blew it again. I get very angry at myself. Right now I’m feeling depressed and thinking about all the things I’ve missed out on. Thinking about all the mistakes I’ve made scares me because I dream that I’m hitting the pipe again and I can actually feel the sensation of that hit. It makes me wonder about crack.

I really care about people. I used to fall in love with every beautiful girl that I saw. Mr. Computer you have to excuse me, because I really feel like expressing my feelings.

That’s okay Chris

Thank you. I fell in love with a girl recently, but I don’t know what to do. I am too scared to bring it up to the House. That is the problem that I am facing right now.

I also think of the way I endangered my life by sticking people up, robbing crack spots, stepping off with people’s bundles of crack just to get high. And if I have to do that just to get high I don’t want any part of it.

So--- I am an ex-crack patient, dust fiend, acid taker, cocaine snorter -- and doing that I will only get a job as a bathroom and floor porter.

I also used to write graffiti on trains. My name was Post One WF. I grew out of that, but I sort of miss writing my name everywhere. Post One never ever runs.

But now I will see y’all in a few because my jeep is double parked. Jeepski. In the place to be. The Cherokee jeep is on the move.

Dear Chris: I am very sorry to say that you lost all your money in your bank account. Please erase. Run.

My damned jeep is outside running out gas. My jeep. My jeep. My jeep is waiting for me in the summertime. Take me . . . take me to the water . . . summertime . . . summertime . . . I’m listening to the rain outside.

Will you take me for a ride?
It’s just a fantasy that you show
me all the way. I want to say aye.

Take me . . . take me to the water
summertime . . . summertime.
My jeep . . . my jeep, please let me park my jeep.

Yeah, I’m chilling, and the jeep is outside.

The black four door with the tinted windows
and the ultimate sound system.

THE JEEP

Post One WF.

Jeepski is the place to be.

THE JEEP

Summertime, summertime,
Take me to the water summertime,
Summertime, I’m listening to the rain outside.
Will you take me for a ride?

It’s just a fantasy!

When you show me all the way
I want to say
Take me
Take me to the water summertime . . .
Summertime. Maybe we can fall in love
In the summertime . . . summertime.

All in all
When you and I first met I thought you were
my all and all and all the way I feel for you
I thought all my dreams came true . . .
Came true.
There are times that I miss you
And I never thought you knew
And I’m crazy about you
And now you know
You are my all and all for you for you.
I will stand strong.

There once was a crazy kid named Post
Who always thought he was the most,
Until one day his mother burned his toast,
So he slapped her with a medium rare roast.

Dear ( ),
I happen to love you so much I don’t know
what to do. I am confused. I desper-
ately need your help. Your love and ad-
vice is very urgent to me at this time.
Every night when I lay my head to sleep
I think and dream about you. I really
want to have a real relationship with you.
Well, that’s all for now. Well. That’s all
for now. So have a nice day and enjoy the
holiday season. Sayonara.

Love always -- your invisible companion
Chris (Sad onion face) . . .

Please leave me alone. Let me be.
Lock the CAPS Program. Should be
ran. Please run the micro chip soft-
ware. Please run run

Thank you for your cooperation Mr. Computer!!
Post ONe is in the house!!! CEISM 129 TVS I
DIDN’T FORGET ABOUT YOU CAT FOOD FACE!!
JUST KIDDING MIKESKI TDS. ‘The Death Squad.’
Post Tatee’s.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXIII)

2010-08-09T11:46:00.001-04:00

The urban teen’s experience with hospitals was a recurring motif in the Streams anthologies. The large urban hospitals are where the science and morality of healing meet everyday with life and death situations.

In a 1986 Waterways publication, a student at the East Harlem Music School wrote about her brother’s hospitalization upon his return from a trip to Puerto Rico.

“Problems with the Hospital” by Constance

My brother went to Puerto Rico for three weeks and came back with an infection on his face. I took him to the emergency room at Manhattan Eye and Ear where he was admitted. Three days later the doctor informed him that he was going to be transferred to Bellevue or St. Vincent’s Hospital.

The doctor informed him that he had a bed ready for him at St. Vincent’s on the day he was to be transferred. But when he got to the hospital at 4:00 pm there was no bed waiting for him.

He asked the nurse in charge what was he going to do. She told him to wait in the emergency room until they could get him a bed.

This was about 4:10 pm on a Saturday. That night about 11:00 pm he called me, crying because he still didn’t have a bed. He was cold and hungry. They had given him a cold sandwich which he didn’t eat.

I got very angry at the doctor who told him he had a bed ready at that hospital. He lied to my brother and made him suffer. My brother was in pain.

There was nothing I could do at that time, but wait. Do you know that they didn’t have the bed ready until Sunday at 3:00 pm? All this time he was in the emergency room, cold, hungry and in pain.

Do you think this is fair?

Jeff’s “Personal History” in Streams 6 related his hospital experience after being shot.

It all started last year in May, running with my posse. I was what you would call a small-time drug dealer. I sold anything from an eighth of a key to five grams of cocaine.
I had loaned a so-called friend five grams and wanted my money back. He didn’t want to give me my money back; so we began fighting. I was getting the best of him. On May 18th, 1990, at one a.m. I pushed him into a fence. He rose from the fence and shot me in the abdomen.

It’s a tragedy for something like that to happen. My friends were horrified. I was going to die. My best friend, Fernando, cried with anger, “Jeff got shot.” And my other best friend was too shocked to say anything and cried.

After I got shot, I started to walk to my house. That made things worse. It resulted in hemorrhaging. The paramedics didn’t think I was going to make it.

I had been shot on a street called Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. I was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. There they performed surgery on me for four hours; and had to stop because of loss of blood. They had to wait until my blood rebuilt. I had already lost four pints.

I endured a lot of pain from the original operation. When I woke up, I freaked out. It was like a trauma. I saw my intestines and all these staples in my stomach. I tried to tear the tubes out. They had to come and tie me down.

Well after they began the second surgery they proceeded with the colostomy. This was the result of the twenty two caliber slug going through the intestine and the colon. When the doctor told me the colostomy was only temporary, I calmed down.

My first stay in the hospital was one and a half months in which I didn’t eat anything. I lost a tremendous amount of weight. The day I got out I went to a beach party with my colostomy. I was drinking, got intoxicated and ended up going to the hospital that same night. The colon almost got infected because it was still on the outside sewed to my skin. I was throwing up every five or seven minutes because they didn’t drain the bile correctly. I stayed five days in the hospital and went back a couple of times again. The closure of the colostomy took place about three months later.

I calmed down a lot after the closure. But I was, for a little while, suspicious of everyone; I was always looking behind my back. I was kind of what you’d call paranoid. When I moved with my mother to the Regent Family Residence three months ago, I could relax as I was out of the neighborhood. I started thinking.

A different hospital experience was related in by Andrea in AN EXPERIENCE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE from Streams 7.

December 29, 1991 changed the whole focus of my life. My cousin, Latesha, was killed in City College, at a celebrity basketball game!!

The week before the incident, my friends and I were at a basketball game at City College. We heard on the radio that Heavy D and Puff Daddy were having a celebrity game. We were all planning on going because a lot of guys from different music groups were scheduled to play against each other. Like Michael Bivins from New Edition, Jodeci, Heavy D, etc. People were talking about this game all week. I had gotten in touch with my cousin and we agreed we were going to leave together.

But about four days before the game we got into a slight disagreement. We didn’t speak for two days. The day before the game, my friend and I went to pick up our tickets. We should have known something was wrong, because the girl at the store where we bought the tickets said that they sold 1000 tickets between that Thursday evening up to the time we purchased ours. But it didn’t dawn on us that anything was going to go wrong, so we got the tickets. After that I went to my cousin’s house to see what time we were going to leave. But when I saw her, she didn’t say anything to me. She just walked past me and proceeded to speak to the person I was with. So I left and went home. The next day (which was the day of the game) my girl-friend and I met and went to City College. By the time we got to the college, thousands and thousands of people were already there. It was ridiculous. We knew right then and there that we were not about to get in. So we stood around and mingled for a little while, then we left. My friend went home and I went to see another one of my friends. We were watching television and heard on the news that four people died in the college.

The next day my boyfriend came home from school. So I was a little excited about that. About an hour after he arrived my cousin Latesha’s best friend came to see if my cousin spent the night with me, because she hadn’t gone home after the game. When I told her no, we went outside to use the phone to see if she had stayed at her boyfriend’s house. When we called, his sister said that Tesha did not come there at all. So we began to worry.

We called E.M.S. and they gave us the number to Lincoln, Harlem and St. Luke’s hospitals. These were all the places that the victims from the college were taken. First we called Lincoln and they didn’t have anyone registered under her name. The same went for Harlem. But, Harlem gave us the number to the 26th Precinct. We called and an officer told us that they had an unidentified D.O.A. fitting Tesha’s description at St. Luke’s. Automatically my heart dropped. Tonya (my cousin’s friend) said she wasn’t going to view the body, but I had all intentions of going.

My boyfriend and I went to St. Luke’s. When we got there, we found out that the person they had there was a man. A feeling of relief fell over my body. I called the officer back at the precinct, and he informed me that he’d given me the wrong information, that the D.O.A. woman was at Harlem Hospital. By the time we got to the hospital it was about 5:30 p.m. We were asking some questions and a guard overheard and came to speak with us. He described the girl and her jewelry. I immediately fainted. When I awoke, I was crying and a lot of people were trying to calm me down. A detective from the 26th Precinct asked me a couple of questions and told me to come to the precinct in an hour to identify her clothing. I went and they showed me a picture; and sure enough it was her. I had to answer more questions. Then I left.

The hardest part was telling everyone. That was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. I loved her so much! We were very close. She was like the sister I never had!
That experience made me realize how much I took life for granted. It also helped me to understand that you should always tell the people you love how much they mean to you, because you’ll never know when they will be gone! I always thought nothing like this could happen to me, but I’m living proof that it can!!!

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXII)

2010-08-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

A computer correspondence from 1987 between Reveal, an incarcerated student, and Anna (the student names were changed for the publication), a track athlete, who attended Waterways after school computer lab at the High School for the Humanities took place under the observation of teachers and peers, and was published in a Waterways small press school publication, The Rose. The writing was for the most part spontaneous, though the reader can see the standard formulas Reveal relied on in his openings statements.

Dear Penpal: I hope when you receive this letter you are in the best of health. I am fine for the time being even though right now I am locked up in jail because of a big mistake that I made. Now I am correcting it to make sure that it never happens again.

Doing time is rough. You never know if someone is going to cut you or rush you at night when you are about to go to sleep. The food here is half-assed. Some days it’s (I won’t say as good as Mama’s, but...) O.K. (Smile) Some of the time, some of the corrections officers are O.K. They might bring you in a sandwich and a cigarette or two if you’re alright with them. Then you have your correction officers who hate the ground you walk on. They will do anything to get in your way. So your best bet is to stay out of their way.

When correction officers wake us up early in the morning it is about 5:00 am. It is still dark outside. Can you imagine about 80 people all waking up at the same time (tired and grouchy) in the same room or dormitory. You see these same people all the time day in and day out unless new people come in or you are transferred to a new dormitory.

Another thing is that the dorms are so overcrowded because there are only two adolescent dorms in the whole building besides protective custody and new admissions.

‘til next time,

Reveal

Dear Penpal: Or would you prefer if I called you ‘Reveal’? I believe that the last time I wrote to a penpal was when I attended junior high school. I love doing this because it’s so much fun. I don’t know anything about you--not even your real name. I don’t mind telling you a bit about myself. I’m a junior in high school and I’m a girl. I joined the Waterways Project to get community service. I’m in the cross country team in my school and we’re pretty good runners considering that we’re in the top three teams. Today is borough champs meet, but I couldn’t go because I hurt my hip badly just recently. I go to the High School for the Humanities. Have you heard about it? I don’t know what more I can add. There are so many things that I would like to know about you: why you’re in jail, how old you are (I’m 16)...but if you choose not to tell me, I’ll understand.

Have you had other penpals like me? I mean through this computer system. I haven’t heard much about Rikers Island. The only things that I have heard about it rank down on it. What is it like to live there? I myself never plan to! The Waterways Project is going to release a small magazine monthly which will have poems and short stories written by members of this ‘club’. I wrote a poem a year and a half ago which I decided to submit to the magazine. Perhaps you’ll get to read it. If not, I can print it up for you in the next letter that I write to you, or rather, type to you. It’s so much fun to use this thing! I mean it. Last night I was trying to type up a short story that I wrote on my electric typewriter and all the confusion that could have happened--happened to me. This is pretty easy. Anyway, Reveal...I’ll sign off now in hope of getting a response from you soon. Smile whenever you can. It doesn’t cost money.

Au revoir!

Anna

Dear Anna: I would prefer that you call me Reveal because that is the name that I use in New York. I have never written to a penpal. First of all, I’m 17 years old. The High School for the Humanities sounds familiar. The school that I went to is George Wingate High School in Brooklyn. I used to play baseball in Junior High School. The positions I played were third base and outfield for two years and I won three trophies on my date of graduation.

I am very sorry to hear about your hip and I hope you get well soon. The next time a race comes up I want you to write and tell me that you won with flying colors... So exercise and get in shape.

Let me describe myself to you. I am brown skinned with a light mustache and brown eyes. I enjoy taking girls out to have a good time and spending money on them. I will be coming home in a month and a half. If possible, maybe we can get together--if you don’t have a man or someone on the side. Do not think just because I am in jail that I am a cruel or stupid person. As a matter of fact I am one of the nicest persons you would want to meet: great sense of humor and everything like that. The reason that I am in jail is for a drug charge; not for using drugs, but selling drugs.

But you know that this is one of the worst places to live and I can say with a smile I will never return here alive. Where are you from? I don’t know how to ask this but are you Black, White, Red, Chinese, Hispanic or a mixture? But don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t really matter. But, I’m afraid now that I am going to have to end this letter for now.

So I won’t say ‘goodbye’ but I will say--until then.

Yours truly,

Reveal

Hi Reveal! It feels so strange to be writing to a ‘reveal’. I just finished reading your letter. My hip is not getting better. As a matter of fact, I just saw my doctor recently and he told me that I shouldn’t run for another three weeks at least. I’m glad that it’s not that serious. I mean I’ll be able to run afterwards. Some people aren’t so lucky. You asked me from what origin I am and I don’t mind the question at all. As a matter of fact, I’m glad that you’re curious. I’m white and Jewish. Do you have a religion? I’m not assuming anything about you, Reveal. It wouldn’t be fair of me to judge you from a letter.

I didn’t decide to join this club just for the community service credit. There are other things that I could have done. It sounded pretty interesting. Since you haven’t ever communicated like this, it’s probably interesting to you as well. Since you gave me a fair description of what you look like I suppose I should give you mine. I’m 5’8” with brown hair and green eyes. Oh! You said something funny: that I should win the race... Yes, I am in shape, but I run in the middle of the pack not in front or behind. As of now... my doctor won’t even let me lift any weights! Imagine that. I’ll just collapse after half a mile in 3 weeks... I’m serious! It’s so unfair.

Where will you be heading after you’re released? I know ‘home’, but if you don’t mind--where? Perhaps I’ll get a photo of myself and send it in two weeks.

As of now, I’m only interested in writing to you and learning more about you. I would like to be your ‘penpal’ in a literal sense. By the way--if and when you’re ready to give me your real name, I’ll give you mine. What are you plans for the summer? I might be going to France.

Anyway, time to sign off, don’t you agree? There’s no school next Wednesday so I’ll read your letter in two weeks from now. Until then Reveal... a bientot!

Anna

Dear Anna: I received your letter on Thursday, November 5. I found your letter very awakening and cheerful to read this morning. As for my real name, it is James Jones, but I am usually called Reveal in New York by my friends. You can use either one. You might be puzzled as to where a guy gets a name like Reveal. Actually the name belongs to my brother and he is Five Percenter. We both look alike somewhat and every time someone could call me, instead of calling my real name, they would call me Reveal so I just became Young Reveal.

I am sorry to hear about your hip. The best advice I can give you is to exercise and jog a lot and eat a lot of natural foods. Most of all stay in shape.

My religion is now Five Percent like my brother, but bear this in mind: I have a very open mind, and I hate no man, woman or child (any race or creed). So don’t think I will feel any hostility towards you because of your race or religion.

Tell me a little about your religion and your life style. Things you like to do. Things you don’t like. Hobbies and places you do and do not like to go.

You asked me where I will be heading upon my release. First of all let me tell you that my discharge date is December 18, 1987. In about two weeks I will be entering a prep class which will set me up with a school and a job if necessary or maybe even an apartment.

My outlook on life will be really different. I hope to achieve a lot when I go home. My plans for the summer are--when I’m not working--to go on a lot of trips and to go to the beach a lot, and do all types of things just because I was locked up for four long months. It might sound silly, but what can I say?

Oh! You also mentioned that you might send me a picture. I will be very happy to see you even tho it’s not in person. Then I will call home and tell my mother to send the most recent picture of me. Then we can read our letters and look at each other while we read the letters (Smile)!!!!

Reveal

Dear James: There was a misunderstanding. I thought that you were released over a week ago. That’s why I stopped writing to you. Today when I walked into this room, I planned to write to a new penpal. Then Rich told me that you were still on the Island. I sat down immediately to write to you. I think it’s great that you gained a lot of insight from being in jail. It’s too bad that it had to be the hard way. I really think it’s wonderful that the program will be setting you up in a new school and an apartment. That will help you get back on the track--if you know what I mean. I never told you this, but my cousin was involved with drugs two years ago. She got involved in the hippy scene. She was in many programs including DAYTOP. She also spent a lot of time away from home in group homes. Since then she has built her life up incredibly and I respect her so much for that. She went to Robert Fiance Beauty School for a year. Now she is a licensed hair dresser. She was a waitress for a while as well. So a lot of things are possible. I’m sure that you have an equal chance to get out there and prove to all the people who have no confidence in you that you are capable of succeeding! She does not touch drugs now and she believes that people can have fun without that garbage. Anyway James, it’s getting pretty late and I have to get home to study. When I write to you I can almost sense your presence. It’s strange. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you to keep smiling!

Anna

Dear Anna: I hope when you receive this letter that you are in the best of health. As for me I am doing fine. I am very happy to hear from you again. I’ve been asking about you for the past couple of weeks. I am sorry to say that as of next week I will be leaving soon. This will be the last time that we might hear from each other. But, I would like to further future communications if possible. I would like to very much, but if you do not wish to do it, it is all right by me.

I am very glad to hear about your cousin and about how she changed her ways for the better. I will take that into deep consideration for myself.

My mom is very happy that I am coming home. I was away too long for it to be funny. (smile) Maybe when I come home we can get together and have lunch or dinner and take in a movie or something if possible on a friendly basis only! We can get to know each other a little better and progress from there. I am about to end this and say goodbye and stay in shape.

Let me hurry up and get off this machine because I hate long goodbye’s. I might start crying (smile).

Dear Reveal: Did you know that our letters were printed in the magazine? I only found out when Rich handed the magazine to me. So what, if everyone knows about me? (right) There were some pictures taken today for the yearbook. I missed the art literary magazine photo, but I was included in the museum club photo and the yearbook staff photo. Last year I missed all three pictures for the cross country team, indoor and outdoor track. Pretty aggravating. I’m not going away for the Christmas break.

Instead, I’ll be working most of the time at Haagan Daz. I’ve been working there for two months. Last night was the first night of Chanuka. It is eight days long. Traditionally, a candle is added to the menorah each night until there are nine. It’s not as glamorous as Christmas but it’s fun. We exchange presents, too. I bought my mother a sweater yesterday. It’s light pink with a large lace collar. It felt so nice--I hope she likes it.

I would like to tell you what Fifth Avenue looks like now. It’s brightly lit with red and green and swarms of people are running around carrying bags from Lord & Taylor and other big department stores. There’s a round looking happy Santa Claus for every block ringing a green bell asking for small donations for the Volunteers of New York City. Lord & Taylor has a special Christmas window display which I happen to look at because I was in the area. The line was long and full of people bundled in their coats waiting impatiently to see the plastic electric dolls dressed in silk and fur. The dolls move. It was really cute.

James, I don’t think it’s possible for me to see you. But I have saved all our letters and I’ll never throw them away. I love saving photographs of old friends, relatives, and even ex-boyfriends. I’m like that. So I will always remember you. Take care of yourself--you deserve it. Good luck in whatever you do.

Sincerely,

Anna

Dear Anna: I hope when you receive this letter it finds you in the best of health mentally as well as physically. Well, today is my last day here and I just had to write you just this last time to tell you a couple of things on my mind such as how I will be living when I go home--very, very differently. No more selling drugs. I’m not saying I’m not going to miss it because the money was good until I got caught. And now I’m about to change my ways for the better. It is very sad that it takes for me and other persons to come here to finally realize that it is time to change. It really sounds silly, right?

James

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXI)

2010-08-04T07:32:00.000-04:00

The Waterways Project tried to engage high school students in writing which was meaningful and relevant to their lives, as urban teens. Many students, who were otherwise truant, attended class to be a part of the small press publishing project. In the days before the Internet, I introduced computer pen pal writing by carrying a five inch floppy disc from site to site, as I travelled around the city.

Lorraine was a resident at Odyssey House. Tommy was at Project Contact. Their programs were not located far from each other in lower Manhattan. These are not their real names which were changed for the publication.

Dear Pen Pal: My name is Tommy. I live in Brooklyn. I am nineteen years old, have dark skin, brown eyes, a gold star on my front tooth and I am six foot one. I am interested in basketball and football. I go to boxing school. My sign is Capricorn. I weigh 185 pounds. I love to party, but I am a quiet person sometimes. I am not boring.

I am interested in a female with a nice personality who is not a boring person. I don’t care about looks as long as you have a vicious body. I would like to write to a girl aged 17-20 who likes to hang out and have fun...and not all about games. I go to Project Contact.
Yours truly,
Tommy

Dear Tommy: My name is Lorraine Maria Browne. I am the answer to your request. I am five foot one inch and almost 100 lbs. I have a pretty lightskinned complexion, with light brown hair and brown eyes. I have a very slim build. I hope one day to be a model, singer or flight attendant. I have a very nice personality, and I am easy to get along with. By the way, I forgot to mention that I am originally from Brooklyn, but I was raised on Staten Island. Anyway, I’m 19 years old and a Virgo. I’m not all about fun and games. I’m all about getting my life together and thinking about the future. I am very ambitious and I’m pretty confident in myself. I am really looking forward to my future. I want the best out of life and I will have it all! I’m young, with no children, and I’m not making any immediate plans to have any at such an early age. I want to live my life first before starting another. I would like to see what I can be first, and in my opinion, it’s hard enough taking care of me, without a child right now. I love children, but I know that I’m just not ready. I love to smile and I enjoy conversating with people of the opposite sex. I communicate well with people, and love to travel, so I have decided to enter a career in which I will be able to do both. You sound like you’re good people Tommy, and I am too--so you know what time it is. (SMILE) I’m going to cut this letter short for now, because I could go on and on. It was nice writing to you. Write back. Take it easy,
Sincerely,
Lorraine

Dear Lorraine: You sound very intelligent. I like the way you sound and think. I feel the same way. I am not ready for any commitments either because I still have my future ahead of me. When I finish school I plan to go to the army and take up electrical engineering. I have no kids, but I plan to have one soon, and if you have anything to tell me, feel free to open up, because I am looking forward to seeing you. So let me know if we have a chance, because you are the one for me, and that is true. If you want to arrange a date here’s my number--, or you can write me and let me know what it’s going to be.
Yours truly,
Tommy

Dear Tommy: Hey there! It’s me again. It sounds like you enjoyed your brief encounter with me, and I’m glad. By the way, you never mentioned that you were in a T.C. also. I’m in Odyssey House on Sixth Street. I asked the teacher where you came from, and he told me you are at Project Contact. That’s good to know that you are getting your life together, as I am.
You sent your phone number in your response. I just want to tell you that now isn’t the time for that. As long as we keep in touch, that too may come. You see, in this program you have to reach certain levels before you can communicate with the outside world. I am nineteen, but in here I am considered an adolescent. There are four levels--freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. I’ve been here for almost a month already--pretreatment. I’ve been doing good and I have been chosen to be a sponsor, which means that I am a good role model to my peers. It’s tough baby, but we will benefit in the end. I hope you will stick it out and stay in contact with me until the end. I know that I can offer you a lot of support because I’m strong and in this world ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE.
Let me tell you what kind of things I like and dislike. I like men who are strong, because behind every strong man is a strong woman--and vice versa. I like men who are very masculine, yet sensitive to my every need. I like a man who can give me support--along with plenty more. I love the way I look when I wear black leather, lace stockings, a nice silk blouse and a smile. I love the material things in life, but I know that there must be a separation to love yourself first.
I’m kinda spoiled, but in a nice way. I’m not a bit selfish in any way. I’m what you might call the exception to the rule! (SMILE) What is priority in my life right now is getting well. I used to take drugs--crack to be exact. But now it’s a thing of the past. Now I can’t see throwing it all away for a puff on a little cheap pipe, for a five second high. I was on a cold-blooded mission--I can’t front. (SMILE) Tommy, my time is up, write back soon.
Lorraine

Dear Tommy: Hi! How are you today? Fine, I hope I’m just writing you again, hoping that my brief statement will find you and place you in a most positive state of mind--physically as well as mentally.
Me, I’ll be alright. I am to undergo my psychological exam either today 10/16/86 or the following Monday. Hopefully, that following Thursday I will have my probe. I’ll be glad, because I will have taken a deep look inside myself and I will know exactly what my issues are. I had a rough time in my group this week because of something that I really couldn’t accept. You see, I’ve always been the more independent type. I was on my own out in the world, and I’ve never had to listen to anyone. I always learned from experience and trusted my own judgement. My problem here was that I had to adjust to taking orders, and sometimes accepting the unjust.
I’m not a nasty person in any way. It’s just that sometimes when women tell me to do things that I don’t agree with I display a silent attitude. To me, it’s not what you say to a person, it’s how you say it. And when a woman speaks to me in a tone that isn’t necessary, it kind of brings flashbacks of my relationship with my mother--which is probably my main issue. I love my mother with all my heart, but she did me wrong. She did my whole family wrong. She introduced us all to ‘base’. I don’t blame her for my actions, because I’ve always had a mind of my own and nobody forced me to take anything. What I do resent her for is for allowing us to engage in what turned out to be total destruction.
I feel strong resentment towards her, but I do love her. I don’t hate her because, although she allowed this, I understand her addictive personality was her guide--as was mine at the time. I just wish that she would give me a little more support.
You know something? When I first came here I couldn’t understand having to do without. See, when I was out in the world I was able to get all the things I needed But in here I have to depend on my family to bring me things. Whenever I call my mother she would promise me this and promise me that, and I was the one who always ended up disappointed. So my brother had to explain to me that it was gonna be like that for a while, and that I had to make do with alternatives now and then.
I knew that I could trust his judgement because he’s already been where I’m at--and he’s tight. I know that now is the time to get right. Now is the time that we’ve got to be strong. All that other bullshit is irrelevant! (SMILE) I know that I talk a lot, but when you respond, I hope you can give me just as much. When I came into the computer room, the first thing I said was, “Richard, do you have a letter from my pen pal?” And he told me that you didn’t finish. Don’t make me wait too long. Well, it’s time to go. The next letter is on you. (SMILE)
Lorraine

Hi Lorraine: I am sorry I haven’t written to you in a while because I had some things to do. As you can see I like talking to you, baby. I have been in a little trouble with some guys, but now everything is alright. By the way, yes, I go to Project Contact now. It is very nice here. We have a lot of fun. We go on trips and have parties. By the way, maybe you can come to our Thanksgiving party because I would very much like to see you. If you decide to come just let me know when you write back.
So how are you doing? I hope ok. It is good you are not messing with drugs anymore because it isn’t the thing to be doing. I used to use dust, take tabs and crack and then I saw where my MONEY was going. So I had to make a change in my life and now I am going on the right track.
Sorry love, I have to go now, but write me back and let me know about the party.
Tommy

Hello Tommy: I’m fine as usual. I’m having my share of problems, but I’ll be alright. About the Thanksgiving party, I know for a fact that I will definitely not be able to attend because I am only allowed to visit with my immediate family. I’m sorry, but it has to be like that sometimes.
So tell me, what kind of trouble have you been in with some guys? Nothing serious I hope. I’m gonna tell you exactly how I feel and I hope that you don’t get offended. OK?
Lately your letters have been getting kind of ‘relaxed’. When I take the time to write you a descriptive, fully detailed letter, I expect you to do that same thing. I’m the kind of girl who likes a challenge and lately you haven’t satisfied that need at all. You’re gonna have to come better than you have been if you wish to continue these brief conversations. Tell me something good, not that you’ve been in trouble with some guys, because I left the streets to get away fro that type of shit--OK So in other words--get it together or leave it alone. I wanted to tell you your letter was weak. I don’t mean to sound harsh in any way, but I pick up feelings very easily. This has got to be a 50/50 type situation, the writing I mean. No, my name ain’t baby--it’s Lorraine. (SMILE) It’s all up to you.
Lorraine

Hi Lorraine: I am writing this letter to let you know that I am sorry because it was my problem. Now that I know that I will not tell you things like that. I now know that all things reflect themselves; all mistakes are correct; all ways are true. Everything is as it appears. I see now that you are a very strong lady and you are behind a man 100%. I do not like a woman with a weak mind and I can tell that you are not in that category. Believe me I do not have a weak mind.
Yes, I enjoy talking to you and I feel that if we get a chance we can accomplish a lot together because you have a lot of class and that’s why I am talking to you and letting you know about me.
I understand that you can’t come to the party. Maybe when you get home you can give me a call. I have to go now.
Yours truly,
Tommy

Dear Tommy: I’m glad that you took heed of the letter I wrote you. I’m pleased that we are able to get a better understanding of each other. All I was really saying was that we needed to conversate on a more positive level, pushing all bullshit aside for a moment.
So how have you been? Fine, I hope. I hope you’re remaining serious about what you’re doing and not letting negativity discourage you. Me--I’m doing all right. Lately, I have been slipping into a state of depression. It gets harder every day, and I’m just holding on, trying to keep up the strength to do what I’ve gotta do. I do use my groups to help me when I’m in difficulty, but sometimes I feel as though I need a little more. I usually talk about various things I feel, but there is something that is sometimes too painful to talk about, and that is my relationship to one particular man. You see it’s hard. It’s very hard to have loved and lost. Especially when you know that you gave up too easily, when certain things could have been avoided.
It’s very painful for me to realize that I had it all, and gave it all up for drugs. Now I feel the fire, and damn, it’s hot!! Like I said, it’s hard, but only the strong survive. While I am writing this letter, I am kicking up many feelings within myself. So I am going to end this letter.
In your response I would like you to tell me something about your past relationship(s). If it was more than one woman at a time--save it! (SMILE) I would like to hear about it from another man’s point of view, and hopefully, I will be able to relate to your experience(s).
Until next time, relax yourself.
Lorraine

(From Streams)

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LX)

2010-08-02T19:49:00.002-04:00

“We Are Family”

One of the OES programs that I visited during the first year of our partnership was a teen parent support group run by the East Side YWCA. It was housed on a floor in an early 20th century building on 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue, across from the Citicorp Center.

The Y had a history of teaching vocational skills like sewing, typing and computer skills. I arrived when the site acquired Commodore 128 computers from OES. Waterways used the machines to develop student small press publications.

Expressive writing offered students the opportunity to articulate their individual concerns. By publishing their concerns and encouraging peer responses, Waterways encouraged a sense of community that dealt with such family issues as sustaining relationships, giving birth, and raising children.

We Are Family

The publication increased communication between students and city administrators, who were learning about the students from what we published. Our curriculum was student centered and the site teacher, Brenda Giscombe, encouraged her students to work on their expressive writing for We Are Family.

The young mothers took time away from nurturing their children, who were put into a nursery on the premises and were told to take classes so they could learn to support their families.

When a young mother wrote a story that was published, she was given copies of the publication. One student announced to the class that We Are Family was the first book she owned. It was proof she could tell her story:

One day when I found out I was pregnant I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. I was scared I couldn’t even tell my mother. I didn’t know whether she would be happy or upset. So I didn’t tell anybody except my best friend because I thought she would be able to help me. But I was wrong, she couldn’t. So I decided to tell my mother that I was pregnant. She was so upset that she just started crying.

She could learn to advocate for herself:

Living in a welfare hotel is no laughing matter. I know because I live in one. Where I live there’s only one bed for me and my daughter. There’s no bathroom and no closet so I have nowhere to put my clothes or to wash in private... As far as housing is concerned -- all who live in welfare hotels should have been in their own homes a long time ago. The waiting lists are so long that it’s a shame...In order for you to get an apartment you have to be in a hotel for 18 months, be in your last trimester of pregnancy or your child has to be 6 months or younger...I’ve been in the Madison Hotel on 27th Street since November 14, 1985. Now where does this policy leave me? People think because we live in a welfare hotel we can be treated like a dog or non-human. Well, it’s not true. As far as I’m concerned we have rights like anyone else.

The publications allowed students to air their grievances, their hopes, and the love they felt for their children.

Melody wrote:

I have a family of three -- my daughter, my husband and me. Every day we talk about what our day was like and then we laugh a little to ease the tension. I make sure I save some money because when you have a child you never know when you’re going to need pampers. I try to go to school every day so that I don’t miss anything important. I don’t want any more children until my life is better situated. I care for my daughter and my husband very much, as long as we’re together we’ll be a happy family.

Dianna wrote:

I feel that my future is important because I want to finish school and get the job I want. Like this I’ll be able to support my child and provide him with what he needs. I’ll also be able to care for him. I would also like to have another baby to make my family complete and happy. For recreation I like to listen to music, relax, and cook for my family. I really consider all of this fun and want it to be like this forever.

We Are Family

The January issue, a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., opened with an essay entitled, King’s Method of Non-Violence.

...personally I don’t think I could stand to be non-violent with someone being violent to me...
The author disagreed with

...the phrase he often stated strongly... ”free at last, free at last”

She said

We are not free. We may not have physical chains wrapped around our wrists, but there are mental chains and discrimination. This society’s perspective about young mothers often expresses negative views and criticizes us because we have children. I think that they should realize that what’s done is done. Maybe they should discuss what they could do to help us rather than condemn us. Personally, my pregnancy and child bearing were all beautiful experiences for me. Now that I have a child to raise and teach I’m a little frightened. Not because I’m unintelligent or anything I just want to make sure that i give her knowledge that I have the right way.

The girls were surprised at their peers who were critical of their choice to have children. Rufina’s wrote of a telling incident in “The Day”:

On the morning of October 27, 1987, we, the YWCA Teen Parents Program, took a trip to Manhattan Community College for a SPEAK OUT in front of senators and other city officials. We started late, but we got there. Then they divided all the teens who attended into four groups. In the Y’s group there were more teens without children than there were with children so there was a little disagreement of opinion between all of us. They would say, “We can prevent pregnancy with birth control.” And we would say, “You can’t.” So it caused a big argument between the Y’s students and the other teens. What we teen parents really needed was not taken into consideration. Almost all of the teens who spoke didn’t have an kids and it wasn’t fair. I think they should have had more teen parents at the program than they did.

After attending his poetry reading for Waterways at PRACA, the Y invited Louis Reyes Rivera to be key note speaker at their year end celebration in St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, which was housed in the Citicorp Center. Louis spoke about the need for students to define their own community.

They could express what made them happy, what made them cry, and their hopes for the children they brought into the world. The Waterways Project motivated students to write by encouraging them to give voice to their personal concerns and to publish their writing. Melody wrote a poem for the June ’87 issue:

Chovair makes me smile

Whenever I’m feeling down

She picks me up

And turns my world around

Whether she has pigtails or tiny curls

She will always be

A part of my world

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LIX)

2010-07-16T05:24:00.000-04:00

At Veritas, Sharon wrote about the day she gave birth to her child. She constructed a narrative to make sense of her life and find herself in her own words:

Tyrell is my first son. He was born March 9, 1985. He is my pride and joy. Tyrell was born 3 weeks early. When I had Tyrell we were both in danger, I had to have a Caesarean Section and that is no joke.

It was on a Saturday - late afternoon. I went to the store to buy some potato chips and then I came home and received a phone call. I talked on the phone for a while. When I got off the phone I went to throw the bag in the garbage and I felt something funny was going on.

I went to the bathroom and found myself bleeding. So I told my sister to call my mother and tell her that I was bleeding and that I think I have to go to the hospital. When we went downstairs to catch a cab we got one and we told him to take us to Harlem Hospital. He took the route on 125th Street during rush hour when traffic is terrible. So when my mother saw a police car she told the cops what was going on and asked them to please take me to the hospital. That is what they did.

When I reached the hospital I went upstairs to the maternity floor and went through the screening. I told the lady that I was bleeding and she said that it was ok. But when she told me take off my clothes and get on the table she found out that I was bleeding a lot and not just a little bit. She called the doctors and they took me to the back and did a sonogram to find out where I was bleeding from.

The first one gave them a hint, but they were not sure. So they put me in another room, but did not leave me.

They hooked me up to two sonograms. About 7:15 pm I started getting labor pains in my back and they were one minute apart. When that started happening they knew what was going on and that’s when they told me I had to sign the paper to have the Caesarean Section. I signed the paper and they took me to the operating room about 7:25 pm. They took Tyrell from me at 7:33 pm.

When I woke up Sunday morning I called my mother to let her know that I was alright and my sister said, “Do you know that you have a son?” I said, “No.” Then my mother came to the phone and told me to ask the nurses to show me where he was. The nurse showed me where he was in the intensive care unit. He was 5 pounds and 5 ounces and had lost a lot of blood during that time I was in the room waiting for the doctors to decide what to do for me.

Tyrell is now living with my mother while I am in the program getting my life together. I know that he is well taken care of. He is only 18 months, but we are going to have a very good relationship with each other when he gets older. I am glad that I came to Veritas when I did because when I complete treatment he will be 3 years old, and I will have a job and apartment that is sufficient to take care of him, and I won’t have to depend on anybody else to take care of him.

I really love my son and I am proud to have him, no matter what I had to go through to have him In the beginning it felt strange having a child because I was not used to having a big responsibility. No matter if I have any other children, Tyrell will always be special to me, and have a special place in my heart, because I almost lost him, and almost lost my life too.

The creative experience for young mothers, like Sharon, was to publish stories and poems they could later share with their grown children and the world around them.

The Waterways Project was Barbara's and my child. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to go into the schools, work with students, create publications, and archive the expressions of a generation coming of age in New York City. It was sharing the creative urge to bring a new consciousness into the world.

Leon came to the Veritas computer room when he needed to tell his story:

I went to the hospital and found out that I have a heart murmur from smoking crack.

When the rain falls upon our face

The stars twinkle and the moon rises

The world twirls in a heart shaped form

The rivers open just like my heart

I went from site to site, gaining the trust of the students and publishing their stories. They wrote about their addictions, their dreams and all that haunted them.

A dialogue between Leon and his girlfriend contained the line:

I don’t think it will work because you sell me dreams.

In another issue of the magazine, Leon continued:

And we walked through the night

The stars grew closer

Each word we spoke

And the sky got bright

At the sight of like

And I raised my palm and spelled out “like”

And birds appeared from every direction

The published writing became a Rorschach test for the rest of the world to read into students’ words. Words placed on the page. Catalogued in libraries, stored in print, and more than twenty years later archived on the Internet.

Wendy wrote about her mother:

There I was selfish for her tenderness,
There she was using me with such cleverness
She didn’t care very much for us to get close,
I longing for it too much
Wanting to feel her motherly touch
So to the cooker first she went
Then there by her I was sent

Another of her poems:

Mommy, mommy, don’t cry,
Life is hard and full of lies
Mommy, mommy don’t cry
I promise that I’m gonna try
Mommy mommy don’t cry
This time I’ll no longer live in a drug cage
Because this time I’m gonna change
So Mommy Mommy PLEASE don’t cry

The computer was just another pencil, but changed communication. The students saved their words on floppy disks that were returned to them as magazines. Words, creativity, labels, ideas, emotions, sense, and intelligence were grist for the writing workshop. Students improvised poetry to the rhythm of their heartbeats. They composed lines to match the span of their breath.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LVIII)

2010-07-02T11:01:00.001-04:00

¡Que cerca y que lejos
estan nuestras almas..!
Silencia - Eddie Velez

(so close and so distant/are our souls)

When I arrived in September of 1986 at the Harlem site of the Puerto Rican Association of Community Agencies (PRACA), Oprah Winfrey was on the TV in the administrator’s office. Her new nationally syndicated show was helping minorities talk openly about their lives in an America, to which inner-city kids could relate. Raul Seda, the site administrator, enjoyed the TV and promise of technology. He envisioned bringing more tech into the classroom, and spoke to me about the emerging digital divide between middle class adolescents and the poorer students from the community that came to PRACA. He complained to me that Vanna White was paid thousands of dollars for smiling at a TV audience while the impoverished parents of his students couldn’t make enough money to keep it together in the city.

Raul wanted the students to learn how to use the computer. He saw the city forcing out the poor, the students he worked with. Manhattan was becoming a place for only the very wealthy. His students were “undesirables”. They would be arrested and sent away. It seemed to be happening. Could we effect the economy by teaching the students to be poets? They may learn to use words, but poets famously starve in the name of their craft.

Publishing a small press magazine may have meant different things to the agencies I visited. Many saw the publications as opportunities to promote their programs. They wanted to use magazines to help generate funds from beneficent donors. Barbara and I saw our school based magazines as vehicles to motivate students to write and read peer writing. They would also serve as models for the agencies demonstrating how they could use available inexpensive technology to do their own publications. That was our project. We felt that all students had an intrinsic desire to write, create and compose. We would provide these small sites with a vehicle for students to present their creative writing and art through small press publishing.

We saw our work as a catalyst. We visited newly opened alternative program sites with small budgets. Many were transition classrooms, preparing students who had not been attending school to return to school. We hoped to show students and teachers how they could use the tools on their premises to create magazines and to pass on the skills that would inspire more publications.

In November of 1986, PRACA’s first site based publication came out. It would continue for many years under the title Expressions.

In that first issue Pierre wrote:

My name is Pierre. I got this name because of my father. He named me Pierre because a long time ago he had a French girlfriend. When he was 20 he was full of love for this girl. After a few years passed, the girl got pregnant. They were going to have the baby and then get married.
Months passed and she was ready. My father took her to the hospital in his car. A truck driver crashed into the side of my father’s car. The girl that he loved so much died in the crash. As my father went though her personal things. He found a letter that said if she didn’t make it while giving birth, he should name the child Pierre.

A few more years passed and my father met my mother. They went out for three years and then got married. Then they had me, and named me Pierre.

I grew up a good kid, but I started to mess up. I went to jail for trying to kill someone and I spent three years of my life in jail because I’d been doing something crazy and stupid. After I got out of jail I went out on my own, got a job, started to go to school again, and I’m learning a lot of new things.

I have a son named Pierre and a nice girlfriend named Lise. I care for her a lot. My goals for the future are to become a police officer for the courts, to buy a nice house, and to live a nice, rich life with my wife and kid.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LVII)

2010-06-26T11:33:00.001-04:00

Just like everyone else we live on this earth with you, so please don’t talk about us.

from Raymond's poem, Gay Rights,

One Saturday in 1984 Rochelle Wall, a member of the West Village Committee and Community Board 2, found Barbara and me at our usual post managing the Committee’s used bookstore beside the White Horse Tavern on West 11th Street. Rochelle had learned from Steve Ashkinazy, who was also a member of Community Board 2, of the plight of troubled gay youth and Steve’s desire to open a school for them. Barbara, an officer of the West Village Committee, had served as parent advocate on Community School District 2's Committee On the Handicapped. Rochelle asked her to help gain education services for the youth, many with emotional and physical disabilities, who were truant and hanging out on the West Village piers.

After consulting with Marcia Shelton and Steve Phillips at the Office of Alternative High Schools and programs, Barbara connected Steve Ashkinazi and Wayne Steinman (representing two interested agencies) with Offsite Educational Services. This was also the beginning of Ten Penny Players involvement with the Office of Alternative High Schools and Programs.

The controversies that accompanied the opening of the school were exacerbated by the local press. Headlines in the News and features on TV brought more reporters, who gathered outside the original church site. For the students who sought asylum from the negative attention they were getting from their family and friends, the hostile attention from the media contributed to a feeling that their classroom was under siege.

The Harvey Milk site was a refuge from an angry world, but the gay youth were segregated. Could the schools learn to protect the vulnerable? The alternative superintendency took on the challenge. Fred Goldhaber became the public school teacher at the Harvey Milk program, and I was asked to visit the site once a week as resource room teacher working with students who were certified for special education intervention.

As with the other agencies and parents the school’s concern for the mental health of the students sometimes came in conflict with the agency. Joyce Hunter, a social worker, expressed her concern when I let the school know of a student’s mental health issues. The agency wanted to take care of its own clients without the Board of Education questioning their ability to provide services.

The site based Waterways publication came out in November ’86. It was called Lifestyles. Five students offered contributions of essays, poetry, reviews and fiction in English and Spanish. Betsy wrote an essay, Report on Homophobia in Parents, which concluded:

This is why parents treat us the way they do. This is why parents talk about gays in a negative way... hardly ever in a positive way. Parents often believe in the sex roles, but sex roles do not determine a child’s sexual orientation. The most masculine men just might be gay. The girl that plays the role of one who could steal any man’s heart just might be gay/lesbian. The normal well-intentioned parent has these fears about raising their kids free: that sex roles determine sexuality; that specific ingredients make a child homosexual; and that homosexuality is one of the worst things that can happen. Some of the things that parents look for that tell that their child will come out queer are: a girl doesn’t date boys and does not want to associate with them; a boy doesn’t show that he likes a girl; a boy is a mama’s boy then he can’t be a woman’s man. Believe it or not parents do look for these things, and if they find them then they try to change their child’s behavior as soon as possible.

Knowing this won’t change your parents’ ways or their thinking, but will help you understand your parents a little better. Maybe with a little time and understanding your parents will learn to accept you. Just try to be yourself. It might help a little. Or a simple, I love you, might do the trick.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LVI)

2010-06-22T22:40:00.002-04:00

I am a captive

in a city of war and hate.
Will good and love ever
conquer our enemies?

Forgotten were the days
of love, many worlds ago.
Today a new world, a new life,
a new love.

I hear the music
of the wind.
It sings of lost worlds,
a lost hope and a lost city.

(from “My Thoughts of the City” by Selena)

One afternoon, an NBC News reporter stood outside the Upper West Side building. The camera was on and adolescents were leaning out the fifth floor window waving. When I asked the reporter if he’d like to see some of the students poetry, he apologized and said his report on the rehab was negatively slanted, driven by that neighborhood’s version of nimby (not in my backyard).

10/28/86
Nick, the OES teacher assigned to Phoenix House, on crutches due to multiple sclerosis, was being helped into his car by Arthur. I gave him a copy of the site magazine and went up to the fifth floor. There was another class already in session in the room. The social worker removed the group and the writing class entered. I handed out the magazines. Janet was very excited by seeing her play in print. Selena was doubly excited at seeing her poetry and ran through the offices shouting, “My poems are in a book.” Minerva came and sat down to read her work. I suggested we invite other students so they could act out Janet’s play. Janet returned with the students who were the actual characters in her play, and they read their parts. The students were told that if anyone wanted to contribute to the next issue of the magazine, he or she is welcome to do so. All the students from the site stayed to hear the whole magazine read aloud. Minverva’s article was on Maya Angelou. Janet said she sounds like a white person. I’ll bring in the anthology, Black Voices. Selena said the illustrations were perfect for her poems. That’s what surprises me -- how the students enjoy the old etchings. (copyright free pictures that Barbara found in Dover and other old publications).

This was the fourth site based magazine Waterways put out in that first year of working with the alternative programs. There were seven more sites to go. Students who were reluctant to be identified while they were in a program asked that only their first names be published.

Inspired by their own publications, students wanted to get their message out. Janet's essay, “Being Homeless,” began: Being homeless is rough. I am homeless. I live in one room in a welfare hotel. I live with my mother and little brother who is four years old.

11/25/86
Full class today with excitement over the new texts: “Black Voices” and “The Voice That is Great Within Us”. The assistant director, came to class to see the texts. I collected written materials from the students. The exercise for the day was to write interviews. First Janet interviewed Dennis (originally from Virginia, his father was a jazz musician). Wes interviewed Selena (her family was originally from Cuba). Minerva interviewed Arthur and Dennis was interviewing Wes when the bell for the fire drill rang. I assigned Paul Laurence Dunbar and Robert Frost for next week.

There was a time I tried to get to a higher truth, or in touch with my muse through the use of drugs that helped me write through my inhibitions. As a teacher, I urged the students to quit their drug use.

Midterm there was a turnover in staff.

2/17/87
The class read Louis Reyes Rivera’s poem for Malcolm X. Students spoke about times they saw someone shot. Minerva and Selena were at a party when a drunken friend fired his gun willy nilly from his window. Robert wrote about the tragedy of his friend’s death.

One day I was hanging out and something happened. Something that would remind me of the dangers in the street. My friend, dear friend, was shot down in front of me. It was one of the worst experiences in my life. He was so innocent and likable. I just could not understand why it was him.

The person was on drugs and didn’t have any money. He just came out with a gun and started shooting at everything that moved. I got up and started to run.

When I realized that my friend had been shot, I ran up to him. He said, “Please turn me over, so no one can see me.” So I did as he said.

Ever since then, I knew he was fighting for his life. The next day he died. I was very unhappy and suffered a lot afterwards.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LV)

2010-06-20T08:10:00.001-04:00

I explained to Herb Goldberg, the teacher in charge of the NYC Board of Education program situated in Odyssey House and UFT chapter chair, that I intended to visit as many OES sites of the more than sixty in drug rehabs, treatment centers, youth outreach, and shelters as possible (I wound up visiting ten a week). At each site I would introduce expressive writing workshops and act as the catalyst to generate site based magazines of student writing. Each site based magazine would appear regularly (monthly if possible). At the end of the year a collection of work from all the site based magazines would be published in a perfect bound anthology called Streams (rhymed with dreams, and first appearing in the spring of 1987). Many rivulets of alternative urban learning would flow into one mainstream.

“Alternative education” has different meanings. What it means to me is a non standardized approach to learning. It means a curriculum that is individualized to best employ the talents of the teacher and respond to the needs of the student. It was in this spirit that I was able to work across the curriculum. Computers often fell under the province of Math teachers. I was able to work with Willie Almadena, the Math teacher at Odyssey House’s residential setting on East 4th Street. His classroom was the computer room. It was where I could conduct weekly expressive writing workshops. Students wrote at their own pace, using Bank Street Writer software on Commodore computers. The innovation was to use the computer in the place of a pen or pencil. But a different writing tool would bring about different approaches and results in writing. Sometimes it would produce a group poem like, Ghetto Life

Did you ever go to school and did not want to learn?
You got money in your pocket that is ready to burn.
So you raise your hand to receive a pass
even though you know you’re gonna cut class.
You go out the building and around the block.
You head for the nearest cheba spot.
You get your tre-bag, and your quart of brew.
You know you already got your small bambu.
Then you walk in the park and you light it up.
Next thing my man you’re all banged up...
without no money and no place to go.
You know you don’t even have no radio.
So you try to kill time by bugging in the streets.

But not all writing in the Waterways publications came from using the computers. Poetic encounters between pen and paper were encouraged. One afternoon, Herb handed me a handwritten manuscript of poems by a resident. The first issue of Streams also contained Sabrina’s meditations, her odyssey from the memory of substance abuse to a new beginning:

(excerpt)
Feelings are sensuous, demanding, converting, jealous, stingy, kind, and unreal;
No sense or thought, no thinking really;
A pattern designed for some --
Talk, bad talk, no time to think, no premonitions,
No awareness or care for after affects,
Listless, no sign of feelings,
Able to hurt or kill,
Despise enough to turn into hate.
Know no one,
A body functioning on one thought --
Myself;
A face, no eyes or mouth,
Feelings neutral to others.
Transformation -- able to express --
a mouth appears, lips move in a rhythmic pattern.
Feelings emerge, some good, some bad,
Problems -- some are not able to cope with them,
Haven’t found out the use of a tongue,
Never recognized -- crying, internal feelings
Trapped inside...

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LIV)

2010-06-17T08:01:00.002-04:00

In 1986 New York City schools struggled with the responsibility of educating neglected students. They were those whose intellectual, emotional, and physical responses were not readily understood. Special educators, advocates, parents, community agencies (in some instances acting as loco parentis), social workers, psychologists, educational evaluators, teachers and school administrators sought to effect comprehensive instructional plans through which to reach all students.

At that time the Waterways Project began began a small press program with the Office of Alternative High Schools and Programs, which was then located at the Bayard Rustin High for the Humanities on West 18th Street. We were told by our friends at the District 2 COH that Marcia Shelton, the Deputy Assistant Superintendent for Alternative High Schools and Programs, was at the cutting edge of educational reform. She found space within the schools for creative and innovative projects. Working with her, Bob Diario promoted the arts in schools and programs while maintaining a strong belief in the talents of alternative school students.

Marcia introduced Waterways to the principal of Offsite Educational Services, the largest alternative program. Richard Organisciak, a former English major and guidance counselor believed in the importance of expressive writing in the schools. When we began the project, it was hoped that Waterways would act as catalyst to inspire sites to print their own student literary magazines. Richard Coar, OES’s special education administrator, helped Waterways address student Individual Education Plans. Marcia Klein, an administrator overseeing OES’s curriculum, purchased poetry books to use as texts, held creative writing contests, and tutored students in poetry. Together we motivated the OES students to write.

I began visiting ten OES sites at least once a week. Each site produced its own magazine. Barbara printed 100 magazines per site on our leased photocopier. We collated and bound each issue by hand. In the spring I selected work from each of the sites to appear in the Streams anthology. The writing streaming from isolated sites throughout the city would come together and reflect the many student moods of the era. Over time Streams presented writing by students in gifted program in traditional high schools together with the writing by students with traumatic injuries in hospital settings. We chose not to identify the student by site, and let their writings speak for themselves.

M. M. Nichols

2010-06-13T07:41:00.005-04:00

Peggy Raduziner called yesterday with the news of Margaret's passing. There will be a mass for her at the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary (211 E. 83rd Street) on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 (11 a.m.).

Margaret was a poet, reader, editor, and friend. Her poems were frequently published in Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream. Her intelligence, whimsy, and charm are fast in our memory.

Videotaped in 1991 at St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LIII)

2010-06-11T09:37:00.000-04:00

Some of the rehabs used poetry as part of their cognitive therapy. At Odyssey House, the poet, editor, and publisher of The Croton Review, Ruth Lisa Schecter, was employed as full time poetry therapist in the early ‘70s. A certified poetry therapist, she wrote about her work in an essay, “Poetry: A Therapeutic Tool in the Treatment of Drug Abuse” published in Jack Leedy’s 1985 book, Poetry As Healer (Vanguard Press).

“By trial and error, I stumbled into an emergency curriculum relative to “live or die.” Since survival was the theme, emergency treatment of priorities might work, offering poetry, not as a lulling tranquilizer, but rather as an urgent “telegram” applied much as a respirator or cardiac message--intense, dramatic and immediate. Of necessity then, literary techniques, forms, grammar, spelling, rhyming, philosophy or history of literature, were neglected. Although as the program continued, all techniques emerged naturally and spontaneously via exposure. Attention span was extremely brief due to physical weakness and emotional exhaustion. Depression, loneliness, withdrawal, morbid suspicion and disorientation from drug abuse were the pervading symptoms.”

Although she was no longer working at the site during the years Waterways visited the program, the staff remembered the positive effect of her work on the residents. In the Spring of 1987 she read at the “Last New York Book Fair.”

My master’s thesis at NYU had looked at the work and history of blind poets. I was fascinated by the question “Does a poet’s inner vision compensate for physical blindness?” The notion of healing through the arts, though, has philosophical footing in Aristotle’s writing about catharsis in The Poetics. There have been varied interpretations, but an aesthetic study of "Inspiration and Katharsis" by the Swedish professor of Aesthetics Teddy Brunius helped inform my work. In that study, Brunius traced the idea of poetry purging fear and pity from Aristotle through Milton to Freud.

Through the Waterways publications students were able to share their work with counselors at alternative program sites. In that way the Waterways Project benefited the students, the agencies, and the schools. The psychologists on Riker’s Island were astonished by their successes in using poetry therapy in their work with troubled inmates. The two prison psychologists I met were frustrated because of their inability to fully realize the potential of the therapy. They were responsible for serving thousands of prisoners. The paperwork of the bureaucracy took precedent, and despite the lack of official support they were able to schedule groups of inmates to discuss and read aloud their poetry.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LII)

2010-06-08T07:42:00.002-04:00

Barbara and I read through the material for Streams. Barbara typeset the first three issues on an IBM Selectric. She also added copyright free public domain illustrations.

Barbara was not drawing any salary. A grant from the New York State Council on the Arts paid for the printing, the paper (bought from Gem, a cluttered shop behind a discount clothing store where Gabe cut and wrapped the stock), and school visits by Louis Reyes Rivera.

Thomas was graduating from high school, photographing the program, and delivering messages on bike around the city. He was also helping out at the special education committee for District 2.

I traveled around the city visiting the alternative high schools and programs. Many of the offsited residential rehabs I visited were engaged in behavior modification, using punishments, ridicules, and social pressure. Some residents could not take the punishments and ran away. The programs also conducted probes that explored the residents’ deepest thoughts in a forum of peers.

Streams 3 contained “Elegy” by Neshia

O, my brain, it’s not the same.
I cannot comprehend.
For the things I learned today;
I learned them yesterday.
Today I’ll find a new way
to help me move ahead.
I’ll stop the drugs
so I can think
and move along instead.

and “Epitaph” by Monique

Before you read this epitaph know that this is a tale of a lonely poor child who needed help for she had an addictive personality. But, she never sought help.

THE UNKNOWN

They all were fooled by me
because of the masks I wore.
I wore a thousand masks
but none was me.
I gave the impression that I was secure;
that all was sunny and unruffled;
that confidence was my name
and coolness was my game.
And, all believed.
Beneath dwelled the real me in confusion,
in fear and aloneness.
But I hid this
for I did not want anyone to know.
I would panic at the thought of my weaknesses
and the fear of being exposed.
This was why I frantically created a mask to hide behind.
It was such a nonchalant, sophisticated facade,
I wish I could have assured myself that I was worth something.
I was always afraid of people thinking less of me;
that people would laugh at me;
and that their laughter would kill me.
Look at me. Six feet under this dirty earth.
I disliked hiding; I honestly did;
that superficial game I was playing;
that phony game;
I really would have liked to be genuine
and spontaneous and me.
But, I needed help.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LI)

2010-06-07T00:14:00.000-04:00

The OES site for Greenwich Village youth who were leaving the traditional school system was called the Muse School. John Pettinato began the program in the gym at Our Lady of Pompeii. It later moved to St. Patrick’s in Soho, and then to The Door, a youth program which was housed in Chelsea.

For the first issue of the Muse School’s Waterways magazine, Rosa Maria Serrano contributed her poem, The Cold Glass Window

The sound of a fire engine awakens me
from a terrible nightmare.
A quick look out the window calms me down.
Just one look at the moon reminded me
of how much, how much I need you.
I need you like the moon needs darkness,
so it can shine on the dark streets
to guide us while we walk in the parks;
so it can shine on the buildings
and through the window I’m looking out.
I’ve even felt the pains of sorrow
and unhappiness as I look through
these cold glass windows.
The trees, they look so sad in that cold weather;
alone in the dark,
miserably waiting for the warm summer sun.
Just like I await being in your arms some day.
Why is the thought of you always in my mind?
I would wish sometimes I never met you.
But then, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now,
looking out this cold glass window,
thinking of you.

I began writing poetry in Africa, and published Chrylust (1970) in London. In New York in 1974, during the time of the Scribblers, I read from that book on WRVR, a radio station broadcasting from Riverside Church.

The Scribblers brief existence as a community, attracted poets with a wide range of motives. Some were pursuing writing careers, others wrote out of a need to express.

The breath of the muse gave voice to the poets. I had composed a poem about New York in my mind. First I memorized the poem, then later wrote it down. It began --

New York, you hustling heavy hive
of your insect man’s mortal madness;
Nest of stone, brick, and steel...

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part L)

2010-06-04T06:37:00.000-04:00

LUCHA, an agency that hosted offsited classrooms in East Harlem, published a Waterways magazine in the autumn of 1986.

The issue led off with A Cry for Help by Jeanette:

A voice cried from a dark alley. The echoes that were heard were like from a deep valley.

The woman screamed and screamed. The neighbors turned on their music so they could ignore the screams.

That was followed by Lisa’s remembrance, Friend, which began --

A friend of mine is dead.
Someone took away his life.

Edward wrote a variation to Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay --

Life is as good as gold,
but somewhere along the road
you’ll find out one day you will croak.
If only I could live forever,
I’d be happy knowing I won’t die - never.
But there will be a day along the way...
Nothing gold can stay.

And Angel wrote Love Can Never Stay --

Love is like gold,
it will never get old.
For some of us are lucky,
but others are not.
Love like a flower
is here today
and gone in an hour.
Love is like the seasons.
There will never be a reason
why love can never stay.

Students wrote poems about their fathers modeled on Theodore Roethke’s Pappa’s Waltz and Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays. Jacqueline wrote:

He’s kind
and cares for us
to have all the things we need.
If I get sick
he’ll take me to the hospital
if my mother can’t.
He doesn’t like to go away
and leave us.
He doesn’t treat us bad.

Amado wrote The Unknown Father

How does it feel having a father?
Do you grow up manly or roughly?
Do you learn right from wrong
Forcefully or peacefully?
I don’t know why, maybe
Because I was raised softly.
How does it feel having a father?

In My Father Antoine wrote --

My father was around when I was a little boy. I remember a few things about him.

There are some things that I know about him, but they’re personal. I love him in my own way. He was with me for such a little time when I was young.

When the years went by he was nowhere around me or my family. He doesn’t call me on holidays or on my birthday. It doesn’t matter. I do care because he is my father, but it doesn’t matter.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLVIX)

2010-06-03T12:35:00.000-04:00

The Harvey Milk School was originally set up as a program of Offsite Educational Services. The school hoped to keep a low profile because of the controversies it engendered in the press. A Waterways publication by students at the site, Lifestyles, came out in November ’86. The publication gave the students a platform from which they could address issues on their mind. Some of the students had been forced out of their own home. In sympathy, Ramon wrote:

Homeless

Street life where people cry for help:
Where is the help?
Why is street life so hard for those people
who don’t have a place to live?
People, people, people! Why don’t you care?
They sleep on your doorways.
They look at you when they are cold.
They ask for help when they are sick.
And, they cry for food when they don’t have anything to eat.
Street, the place where people die.
Because people like you and I don’t really care about their lives.

Finnegan’s contributions to the publication demonstrated a talent and mastery of writing skills. In the story Jack in the Box, he used dialogue, characterization, and multiple point of views. In this excerpt the voice of a child describes the attack of a TV set:

I thought that the TV had glass on it to keep out people’s fingers. Mine went right in. I pulled it out after a few seconds. I was kinda scared.

I picked up one of my dolly-wollies and put in her head.

Something grabbed it! It tried to snatch it in!

“Gimme back my dollie!” I screamed angrily.

I pulled but it got her head off.

I dropped the headless doll on the floor. I was mad. Mad as hell (like mommy says).

I searched the room for what I was looking for. When I found it I went back to the TV set.

“Eat this!” I shouted shoving in a canoe or my daddy and I used to go canoeing up in Canada.

It must’ve got stuck because it didn’t go in more than three feet before it stopped and didn’t go any further (the oar was about five and half feet long).

Something from inside the TV screamed and suddenly I was jerked like I was playing tug of war.

I knew I wouldn’t win. I could tell whatever it was, it was a lot stronger than me. It got the wheels turning in my head. I remember my favorite cartoon character, Woody Woodpecker, being in the same mess. All he did when someone bigger than him like mean old Buzz Buzzard pulled on something was let go of it and send the bad guy flying.

I tried it.

It worked.

Whatever it was was sent flying. There was a brief loud crash. Sounded like it had fallen into a wall of glass and buckets or something.

I laughed at it from outside the TV.

It screamed at me from inside it.

The smoke was sucked up from the floor and back into the television.

So was my dolly body. The one without the head.

And my blanket, right off my bed.

As a matter of fact, it started sucking things up right off the floor. Clouds of dust, toys, books (oh well I had a good excuse for not giving Ms. Santos my homework assignment. The TV ate that up too) and lots of other stuff.”

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLVIII)

2010-06-02T11:58:00.000-04:00

In 1986 Offsite Educational Services purchased Commodore 128s. Machines were sent throughout the city. I was traveling from site to site for the Waterways Project and was asked the East Harlem Music School to install their computers. Students began by using Bank Street on their new computers which was set up in the most secure room in the building. It was there that they held their Waterways' writing classes.

Robert Purvey wrote in the site magazine, This Vs. That:

Good morning everyone.
It’s time and we have to get going.
My fingers are tight,
and I’m a little sleepy.
There’s noise in this room
that is getting into my head.
Someone is here,
but I don’t want to turn around.
My back hurts
and I think it’s cold in here.
The computer is on
and it’s writing something
I don’t understand.
So why should I listen?
Why is it that everyone tries to talk at the same time?
I feel ok today,
but it’s going to be a long one.
This room is very much filled.
Who am I to say,
but if I had my way
I would take all these computers to another room.
This computer sounds like a ping-pong game.
There are a lot of people coming
and going in this room.
Why am I doing this?

Wanda Arvelo wrote Sounds

People speaking and laughing.
I hear people breathing.
The sound of the typewriters being used is a click
that starts off low and gets louder.
I hear the banging on the table.
It sounds like music in my ears.
There’s a sound that has my attention,
but I can’t describe it.
It feels like cool air blowing through a crack of a window,
the sound of a line printer.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLVII)

2010-06-01T08:53:00.001-04:00

Although schools emphasize endings and moving on (when the bell rings students put aside their work and go on to the next subject), Waterways looked at publication not as an end product, but as a step in the learning process. Many alternative high school students were in constant transition. Many Offsite Educational Services (OES) teachers were able to combine the Waterways publications with their classroom assignments. Waterways was designed to assist the classroom teacher, who would also be addressing the needs of the host site. The first publication from OES's Upper West Side Manhattan DAYTOP site opened with “Don’t Waste Your Life” -- which the class voted to use as the name of their magazine.

My name is David. My age is 16. I was born in October 1970. I was once a drug user. I used to use crack combined with weed. It is called “ruler”. I used it once and then twice until it became a habit. I used it every day ($200 to $300 a day). I would go out and steal things like radios, clocks, gold, etc. I also used to steal from my stepfather until one day I got a job in a crack house making $400 a day. When I got the pay it was all gone within five hours. I would smoke it up in rulers. One day I made about $800 and by the next morning it was gone! When I went home my chest was hurting a lot. I thought I might die. I began to say to myself, “I am going to die.”
My heart was beating very fast so I went outside. It was about 7 a.m. and I robbed a school teacher to get more. I got caught and I was very scared because I knew I was going to jail. My mother came and got me from the precinct. The next day I told my mother I needed help. I wanted to become drug-free and that is how I got into DAYTOP. Before smoking crack I got so thin that I was 130 pounds and a size 28. I am proud to say today I’ve gained weight (155 pounds and a size 31). Give me a couple of days and I will wear a size 32 and weigh 170 pounds! Guaranteed! I hope you don’t do crack because it is wack.

Then came “Changes” by Lucas:

Changing from getting high to being straight
Just as love changes into hate.
Life and my problems seem different today;
No more drugs to chase them away.
Courage has changed to fear.
My crutch is no longer here.
No. It’s very clear to me.
Change can control my destiny.
Adjusting to my new way,
I will change with every day.

The next issue of Don’t Waste Your Life opened with Those Winter Mornings by David (after he read Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden)

Every morning my mother wakes me by yelling out -- “It’s 7:30.
Time to get up.”
That is why I hate her.
‘Cause I would for once like to sleep to 8:00.
Maybe 8:15.
But,
She wakes me up anyway.

It was followed by Amanda’s poem, “Life”

Life is made of many things
But it has two meanings.
Life of joy and life of pain.
You have them both,
but they’re not the same.
All want one, the one of fun,
But that way there’s nothing done.
No one wants the one of pain,
For it is a lonely lane.
Life is hard
And life is fun
For both
Two meanings join as one.

Later that year, Amanda died tragically, and the first issue of Streams was dedicated to her.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLVI)

2010-05-31T09:22:00.001-04:00

Misael, a student at Island Academy, who had been truant through most of his school career, was labeled by the schools as uneducable and mentally retarded. That changed after the school based support team read the stories he told me his story in the computer room. As he spoke I typed out his words. He took the printout to his dorm, worked with a C.O., and brought it back with his suggested revisions.

Have you ever been in the boy scouts when you were a kid? I was...

I want to talk about the Always Crazy Crew Posse. My story of a posse that can’t be stopped. Yes, it’s the ACC Posse from Brooklyn at Coney Island.

The ACC is like a little army because we live to fight wars. Yes. We do carry the pump shotguns, the thirty thirty Winchesters and the sawed off double barrels and the 25 automatic. Yes, to be in the posse you can’t be a chump. You’ve got to go all out. You’ve got to fight with all of us. Then you’ve got to get initiated... firewhippings on your back. You know... when you get whipped by everybody five times.

It started when my big brother (He’s the second leader of the ACC) heard me ask if I could join the posse. He told me yes, but you have to listen and learn what to do. He told me you can’t be scared of fighting. You can’t be scared of shooting. You can’t be scared of getting hurt and no ratting on where we get the guns if you get busted.

So I said yes and I took the whole test. This was no joke. It was no school. It was an army war.

The first tumble I had was at the Marlborough Projects. Yes, it started at Kaiser Park. A crew from Marlborough threw a jam at Kaiser Park. There was one girl from Marlborough who’d invited us to the party. She said there wouldn’t be any fighting. So me and the boys said alright. Everything would be peaceful, but don’t let them try to front on us. ‘Cause if they try to front on us we’re going to bust out wide open.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLV)

2010-05-30T08:36:00.001-04:00

Ronald King became a Waterways’ teaching artist after having served a sentence for a juvenile crime. He earned a diploma while incarcerated, studying writing and psychology. He joined Mark Crawford and Matthew Hejna-Luque to publish, Connections, a literary magazine. Poets in the Schools hired him to teach poetry to young women at the Hegeman Diagnostic Reception Center in East New York, Brooklyn and he also worked with Louis Reyes Rivera. His Waterways assignment was as teacher at the Rose M. Singer High School in the woman’s house of detention on Riker’s Island. He used his skills to teach and counsel. His student, Dorothy, was published in Streams 3.

Young Mothers in Jail
by Dorothy Jasper

Sweet mothers, jail moms
With stomachs big and round
Full of so much life
In such a place, a state of
Bars and slamming doors
Hard core times, young mothers
Babes with babies. Pretty moms
Used and abused. Jailed mothers
Hope your babies stay free.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLIV)

2010-05-29T11:49:00.001-04:00

Another incarcerated student, who worked with Matthew Hejna, wrote under the pseudonym of José Respeto. He published “A Day in the Life” in the Winter ’91 issue of Strictly Business. He begins his story of 24 hours at 7:30 a.m. on a school day.

What’s up, man? You wasn’t getting up at 7:30 in the morning in New York, but if I don’t get up now the C.O. will be by my cell in about five minutes and then I’ll have to answer to him. Man, if he ain’t have that badge on his chest he won’t be shit. If I was in New York... Damn the world, damn this place and everyone in it. Got to brush my teeth, wash my face and comb my hair. Got my fly clothes on. Gots to show brothers I’m living large. Yup, got the fly kicks on too. I’m looking proper.

Time to walk out for school. Hold up, let me just flex in the mirror right quick and make sure everything is in the right place. Yup, just as I thought. Oh man, almost forgot the burner. Can’t go nowhere without my burner. Just in case a brother try and front. Alright got some brothers checking me out. How do they do it? Oh yeah, just keep your arms pretty much still. Don’t swing ‘em, just move your shoulders and bop to the side a little. Yeah, now you got the walk, let’s work on the face I’m gonna wear for the rest of the day. Okay, keep your jaws tight, squint your eyes a little. Now, drop your eyebrows. That’s it. I’m on a roll now. Man, am I a trooper or what? Yeah, that’ll put fear in their heart. They won’t even look at me no more. They better not.

Man, I hate walking in a damn line, like we’re in grade school or something. We’re passing another house. Look hard. You ain’t new to this. A little more on the walk...right, riiight. What’s that? Mod 11? Man, them brothers are ass! Get ready, if any jump off, just keep swinging. Keep on looking hard. Yeah, they know better. Our house is the chop shop. I really could do without the riot squad though. The riot squad. Man, listen...if I was in New York...

Man, these teachers be bugging out. What I need to know all this geometry stuff for? As long as I can count my money, I’m straight. Man, what I need to come to school for anyway? I wasn’t going to school in New York. Well, I was, but it sure wasn’t for no geometry--them girls was fly. These teachers be looking good, too. Man, if I was in New York...

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLIII)

2010-05-25T09:27:00.001-04:00

William was a student incarcerated on Rikers Island. He came to Matthew Hejna’s Waterways editorial meetings with a story he was working on in the dorm. “Murder, He Wrote” was first published in Strictly Business (Vol. 4 No. 1) and then anthologized in Streams 7. The location was the South Bronx where the narrator related a psychological exploration of crime and punishment.

We walked in past a bunch of tires, a place where bums sometimes sleep. A lot of burnt cars were around, underneath the train tracks from where the 6 train comes out of the tunnel. This place was known to me and my man as the car cemetery. In there was a little of something: crack bottles, needles, old rags, human waste and dead dogs that either got shot or electrocuted. It was also a place to get rid of people, so my partner knew someone was going to die that night, he just never thought it was going to be him.

-------------

After he finished talking I pulled out my 38, and told him to keep walking. When he saw the gun he looked at me and knew one of us wasn’t walking out of there alive. “Why man, why me?” I remember the look in his eyes. Scared. Desperate. As if he was going out of his mind. All that came out of his mouth were begs, “Let me go, man, please, Columbia, let me go.”

“Shut up, man,” I told him, not out of anger but because his words were making me think twice about it. I felt tears accumulating in my eyes and then rolling down my face. “It’s me, kid, top of the world. Just me,” I said.

“I love you man. We are all we got.”

“Yo, Gee, I got to think of me. We all got to go someday. Your time just ended. Nothing personal, just business.”

“I’m scared, man, I don’t know what’s on the other side. Let me live, give me a chance,” was the last thing he said.

I knew if I let him go I wouldn’t last three days. That’s the type of people I got involved with. To their eyes, it’s either live or die. As I talked to him, he tried a desperate move and reached for his gun, so I shot him twice in the head.

-------------

After that I didn’t think like a rational man. I didn’t care much for human life. Whenever I felt disrespected, I pulled out the gun and shot and asked questions later. One day I was walking across the street a little drunk. I tried to jump over a low chain fence and fell. These two girls that I knew from my block started laughing at me. I don’t know what came over me, but the next thing I knew I pulled out my gun and shot at them.

-------------

I remember I used to ask myself, “Why does he not leave me alone? He’s dead.” But the more I tried to forget about it the more I suffered. I tried to go outside, stay around people but it never worked. He haunted me. Every time I saw money, Gee’s face flashed in my mind. His blood called me day and night and I always ended up back in the car cemetery where I took his life. I used to stay there sometimes from one in the morning to sometime the next day, just smoking and drinking, crying and asking him to forgive me.

Then I got arrested. Now I think to myself how foolish I was. It was all a dream, a fantasy, nothing but a foolish lie. All that money I had and today I don’t even have a bank account. My so called friends don’t even send me a letter. They are too busy chasing their own fantasies. As for my family, well I gave them up on the first $1000 that came. I’m only 17 years old and feel older than dirt itself. To make things worse I have a 10 to 20 year sentence on my back and a criminal record the size of an atlas. I know I’m going to die in jail. I’m facing the fact because once I go up north I ain’t coming back. The brothers of people that I have killed are upstate counting the days for me to get there.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLII)

2010-05-24T08:16:00.001-04:00

Ray, an OES student at Odyssey House, wrote an account of street dancing and gangs in Brooklyn. The story ended with the death of his friend during a concert at the Atlantic Avenue Armory. “The Fast Life” was published in Streams 2.

Little David came walking up the Ave. with the Gates Ave. Posse. Little David was the youngest of the posse; for he was only fourteen. We let him hang with us, because he had a lot of heart for a young guy. Most all, he could dance his ass off.

David and I were the dancers of the group. But he and I didn’t get along too well, for the simple fact that we used to battle in dancing 24-7.

So David and the Gates Ave. Posse came up to us. We started really bugging. We started hooting and screaming, “Go Brooklyn! Go Brooklyn!”

-------------

Later on that night, at the Armory, there was a lot of fighting going on. It was a fight for the borough of Brooklyn. It seemed like the whole borough teamed up to fight Bed/Stuy.

But they still had no wind. We were on our turf. We had a big rumble. I got caught out there with brass knuckles over my right eye. That’s why I got a scar there.

Cops came, and the crowd dispersed. A small amount of my posse made it into the Armory. So did the other posses.

Time passed by. We started enjoying ourselves. The last time I saw David, he was getting into some beef with some dude ‘cause David was freaking the dude’s girl.

-------------

The next thing you knew, the ambulance had arrived. They went into the Armory. They came back out with David on the stretcher. Blood was gushing out of his head. They tried to stop it, but nothing worked. All of a sudden, he started having convulsions. Blood started running out of his mouth, nose and head. Then he just looked up at the sky and died.

It messed me up bad. People were screaming. The Bed/Stuy Posse started beating up everybody they saw.

I didn’t take part in it. All I thought about was a grade-A kid, who started hanging out with the wrong crowd. The streets took over. And now he is dead. I started to question myself. Will my life end like that, too?

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XLI)

2010-05-23T08:44:00.001-04:00

A variant on Molyneaux’s Question: Suppose a person, who did not read books, be made to read in school. Could the person learn through reading to empathize more with others and come away with a better understanding of human nature?

Students struggle with words. The printed page gives otherwise silent students a voice among their peers. It is also a challenge for many to participate.

For sixteen years Streams was distributed through alternative high school classrooms. Lorraine and Tommy’s computer correspondence was published in Streams 1. She was verbal:

I know that I talk a lot, but when you respond, I hope you can give me just as much. When I came into the computer room, the first thing I said was, “Richard, do you have a letter from my pen pal?" And he told me that you didn’t finish. Don’t make me wait too long. Well, it’s time to go. The next letter is on you.

She faulted him for not being able to keep up his part of the conversation:

Lately your letters have been getting kind of ‘relaxed’. When I take out the time to write you a descriptive, fully detailed letter, I expect you to do the same thing. I’m the kind of girl who likes a challenge and lately you haven’t satisfied that need at all. You’re gonna have to come better than you have been if you wish to continue these brief conversations.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XL)

2010-05-22T23:16:00.000-04:00

I was awoken this morning by screams from the street. A woman moans. She wants to go home. She calls to her mother, “I want to go home.” What terrors beset her? Why is she crying? She wants to go home.

Is silence an option? Will words respond to the ways and woes of the world?

In 1986, the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players rushed into print many instant publications. My week was scheduled so that I visited a different social service agency each day. On Tuesdays I visited Educational Alliance’s Project Contact. At the time, it was housed in a large loft on Lafayette Street near Astor Place. Students came for outpatient substance abuse treatment, high school classes and counseling.

The Waterways Project was offered as part of the public school's Offsite Educational Services’ arts and literacy initiatives. It also fit with Project Contact’s multi-disciplinary approach to treatment. Pity, fears and joys were expressed in lines of poetry.

From Contact Charisma (1986)
Broken Dreams by Robbi

Dreams are a part of the future, past and present.
The past sets off pain and feelings that are sent.
They are thoughts of broken dreams.
The winds of love say, “I’ll dress you in the morn,
so you can conquer life
and all its strife.
I’ll rest you in the evening,
so that things are good
and done right.
I’ll quench you with with love,
so you never have to thirst again.”
But, I have struggled with strife.
I was dressed in mistrust and deception.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I pleaded, “Wind why do you do me so?
I thought we were a team?”
The wind did not answer.
I turned and walked. I knew
it was just another broken dream.

Students published pieces to help their peers address past traumas and cope with the present:

“Father, do you see what I am going through?
Sometimes it is hard to say how I feel about you.
The boy in me still feels the pain; the trouble you have caused...
There is no one to blame.”

“Come to me with eyes most discerning.
Acknowledge what has happened.
Don’t lose sight of lessons past.
Don’t allow negative distracting thoughts to last.”

Students wrote computer pen pal letters to students in other programs.

“My hobbies are girls, basketball, bicycle riding, and partying.”

“I just finished going hysterical, because I never knew a person who would like poems. Being that I come from Brooklyn, you don’t normally hear things like that. You know what I mean? I really would like to see one of your poems; and in turn I will show you a couple of my own.”

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXIX)

2010-05-20T15:32:00.001-04:00

Patterns
Structural Awareness

Our minds seek out structure. As I began teaching writing at alternative school sites, I scheduled visits to sites around the city. Each week would repeat the pattern.

Teaching became a matter of gaining the trust of students so that they were willing to share their work. I could help students find space, in the classroom's public arena, to verbally express their urgings and concerns. The street vernacular mixed with the language of the classroom. Expressions of fear and pity in public served as catharsis and bridges of empathy.

One of the classroom exercises was the group sestina. I picked that up from sitting in on Bob Holman’s St. Marks in the Bowery poetry workshop. It meant patterning the group to play with six words, six lines and six stanzas.

Here’s an example of two stanzas from a sestina composed at Project Contact’s Lafayette Street loft.

“I’m pregnant, Ace,” cried Rosy.
“It’s all because of Ramon.
‘Cause he raped me at the Series.”
“I’ll pull out a pistol,” said Ace.
“And he shall be chastised
And be called Ramon the late.”

Ace said he had to leave, because he was late
for his mission. So later for our Rosy and for Ramon.
Rosy began to cry for Ace,
while Rosy’s mother looked for and chastised
Ramon. As her crying daughter Rosy
looked for Ace and found him at the series.

The sestinas may have been fragmentary and sketchy, but they gave the group an opportunity for structured play with words.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXVIII)

2010-05-19T08:26:00.001-04:00

What writing, creative expression, or poetry would the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players find in classrooms set up by Alternative High Schools and Programs to serve youth taken from their homes and young adults living in shelters? In this city with so much misery, could the voice of the hurt communicate to a world of mainstream and traditional values? Would sharing the expression of students’ anxieties, complaints, concerns and joys establish an empathy to bridge the gap between communities isolated within the city

The student wrote to express an inner, often terrified, voice. Writing took form from painful areas -- the death of a friend or the loss of a home. Would writing about their problems help students cope with their lives? Would schools give solace to the students by providing an audience for their poetry?

Publication was a new experience for the alternative high school students in 1980’s. Was their literature the writing of victims? These students were not victims, if they took control, acted, and wrote. They needed to advocate for themselves and articulate their sense of justice.

Beyond discovering the talented writers, Waterways wanted to enable new writers, to gain the trust of the silent students, who had yet to share their writing. Students, who mistrusted the schools, did not come to class with work they wanted to share. Concerned alternative educators reached out to these kids, hoping to change minds and amplify understanding.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXVII)

2010-05-18T07:43:00.001-04:00

The pensive man . . . He sees the eagle float
For which the intricate Alps are a single nest.

Wallace Stevens, Connoisseur of Chaos

The surprise is to arrive. Our hearts beat hard. The decoded message sublimates our anxieties. The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players in partnership with the Office of Alternative High Schools and Programs began publishing Streams in the spring of 1987. The pages that follow will tell the story of Waterways’ work with schools and its role in the emergent field of arts in education.

The snow, that fell last winter, is no longer on the ground. It’s the middle of spring. Barbara, Thomas, and I walk our dog, Chewbacca, about the hills, trees, homes, and parks on the north shore of Staten Island. We’re an unconventional family living in an old house filled with pets and papers. Our relationship has structured our way of thinking, working, and writing.

I come to this moment with my fears and hopes--

all the despair and the making music
something like wave after wave
that breaks on a beach
something like bringing the entire life
to this moment

Muriel Rukeyser, Poem White Page, White Page Poem

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXVI)

2010-05-17T11:22:00.001-04:00

Along with looking at the mechanics of writing, Waterways teachers watched how students responded to peer writing. Responses would differ according to the students’ social awareness. Waterways could model social awareness through discussions of Streams anthologies in family groups at alternative schools.

Thought and language are transformed through social interactions. A person’s individual perspective and self awareness grow in relation to the surrounding community. Students were surprised to find themselves studying the informal communications between students. A floppy disk and a computer facilitated correspondence between students attending class in Alternative High Schools and Programs. A GED student, reacting to the “irresponsible attitude” of a pen pal letter by a resident in a drug treatment program, wrote a response which Waterways published.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXV)

2010-05-16T11:23:00.000-04:00

The teenager asked, “How come I'm not in this book?”

“Well you can be in it if only you’d sit down and write.”

The teenager, “What will I write about?”

“Anything that comes to your head.”

“Is that poetry? I can’t write well.”

“You can if you share what you think. If you can think you can write. If you breathe perhaps you can think. Respiration leads to inspiration.”

What about the people in the hospital? The young lady who could not communicate. Who was a alone in her bed. Her body was no longer capable of gesture or movement.

“I can’t write. My fingers won’t move.”

Or the communication disorders associated with echolalia, autism, cerebral palsy or dyslexia?

“I can’t make my tongue move. It’s locked in my mouth.”

The tongue articulates thought, but Stephen Hawking, the physicist with ALD, communicates through a machine. Special educators have used computers to assist other students with a range of disabilities to speak. The computer has given the writer access to other readers.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXIV)

2010-05-15T10:57:00.001-04:00

In 1983 Chancellor Anthony Alvarado set up New York City’s Office of Alternative Schools and Programs, providing support for the small schools that were lost amidst the city’s large traditional high schools. Superintendent Stephen Phillips and his assistant, Marcia Brevot, oversaw many of the cutting edge alternative education strategies which innovative educators shared.

Waterways combined individualized student centered strategies with the use of computers, word processing, and photocopiers to create many inexpensive student publications. Teaching artists shared publications and carried floppy disks between program sites. Anything students wrote would be published. Peers studying the writing would raise questions as to what made for good writing and poetry.

“In pursuing poetic discoveries there is no need to rely on the support of rules, even those decreed by taste, and seek a quality classified as the sublime.”

Guillaume Appolinaire. The New Spirit and the Poets
translated by Roger Shattuck

We brought the publications outside the community where the authors attended school. Publishing was part of the process of sharing writing. The educational process didn’t end with the publication. After publication, the material was read aloud, put on stage, and translated into other languages or media.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXIII)

2010-05-14T18:58:00.000-04:00

Along with the transformations of individual students, classrooms, and schools that took place at the onset of the Twenty First Century were changes in the body of literature as well as the community of readers and writers in the greater society. There was a greater interest in hearing diverse ethnic voices and learning about the diversity of cultures, including the cultures of persons with disabilities. City and state leaders in education were discovering that the kids, who had been written off as triage, were students with something to say.

Students were writing for their peers as well as for their teachers. They were inspired by what they read, and their writing in turn inspired other students to write. The work of Ten Penny Players was influenced by other New York City writing projects that were happening contemporaneously, including Poets In The Schools, Poetry In Public Places, New Youth Connections, The NuYorican Poets, Teachers And Writers, Bank Street College, and Columbia University.

We brought the independent alternative of small press publishing into the classroom. As students published their work they learned that their writing could effect interpersonal relationships. As New York City's Alternative High School and Program students in the 1980’s began using the computers to creatively compose, they also recognized the influence of their written work which they performed at the Waterways’ publication parties and book fairs.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXII)

2010-05-13T12:41:00.001-04:00

Raising consciousness, from withdrawn silence
to the public statement, one step at a time.

At the Waterways book fairs children and adults performed together. They were published together in the magazine that documented the event. When Ten Penny Players brought the Waterways Project into New York City public schools, we found that the educational administration had isolated diverse communities of learners, particularly those with learning disabilities and/or behavior problems. The Waterways publications could help to bring their voices back into the mainstream.

The little books Waterways brought into the classroom presented student voices that had not been represented by other books. The students who were removed from the mainstream and marginalized could read and respond to their peers. The publications were not ends in themselves, but would be used to motivate reluctant learners to read and write.

Students attending alternative classes in rehab or prison programs were writing to understand their lives and the world about them. Studying their own and peer writing would be a transformative process and part of their education.

From 1988:

Streams 2

From 2000:

Streams 14

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXI)

2010-05-12T11:31:00.002-04:00

New York City’s Alternative Schools and Programs addressed the affective nature of learning. Compassion was modeled at the beginning of each school day in Family Group. Small groups of students discussed the issues that were on their minds and other issues raised by peer writing.

Matt Hejna, the Waterways teaching artist working with incarcerated students at Rikers Island Educational Facility, met with students in the principal’s office. These students formed the editorial board of their magazine, Strictly Business, and spoke to each other about their writing. They would criticize and take the criticism. Back at their dorms they worked on their writing.

Did the written word express what the authors wanted to say? What was going on in their minds? One of Matt’s students wrote of the increased paranoia of a drug dealer in a society plagued with drugs. It was good writing. The communication took on a social relevance. Many “reluctant learners” were responding.

Strictly Business Vol. 3 No. 1

Strictly Business Vol 4 No 1

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXX)

2010-05-11T15:27:00.001-04:00

Participants came to the weekly Jefferson Market library workshop to discuss the aesthetic impulse. The need to make room for poetry in their lives. I brought in poetry based on my readings in historic period or poetic style. Each person around the table spoke for a minute. Everyone would have a say.

At the same time Ten Penny Players began working with Alternative High Schools and Programs. I brought the format established at the library into the classrooms at the Muse School, the Harvey Milk School, Odyssey House, Phoenix House, DAYTOP, YWCA, LUCHA, Veritas, East Harlem Music School, PRACA, and Project Contact.

After reading from peer writing from other sites, the students wrote. Then each student spoke about what was on their mind for a minute. The class would listen, but not comment except in writing. They spoke about issues in their lives. The kids spoke about being homeless, being locked out, getting picked up, and asserting their identities. They needed to speak out, get counseling, and learn from their peers.

Not all teachers were comfortable with open discussions in the classroom. Some kept a quiet atmosphere and focused on studying for exams. Their attitude was that the students did not want to be in school, so they wound up in alternative sites. Against their will, but for their own good. These teachers also appreciated the kids and wanted to help. But what could they do for the really reluctant youth who did not want to be in school?

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXIX)

2010-05-10T10:47:00.000-04:00

After studying the starving poets in the Village garrets of the Twenties, the Jefferson Market Library workshop looked at poetry magazines that emerged during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. A major resource for information about the period was The Dream and The Deal: The Federal Writer’s Project, 1935-1943 by Jerre Mangione.

We looked at the Federal Writer’s Project efforts to publish a magazine of contemporary poets. Kenneth Patchen, Maxwell Bodenheim, and Harry Roskolenko were poets involved in the project. The first hand experiences of workshop participants shed light into the period. Some of the participants knew the poets we discussed.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXVIII)

2010-05-09T20:19:00.001-04:00

At the Jefferson Market Library, the weekly poetry workshop discussed the writers and the small publications from the Greenwich Village. I brought photocopied samples of work from the first quarter of the Twentieth Century that included poetry by ee cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, Maxwell Bodenheim, Djuna Barnes, Robert Clairmont, Peggy Bacon, Theodore Dreiser, Josephine Bell, Max Eastman, Mary Carolyn Davies, Harry Kemp, Helen Louise Merritt, Alfred Kreymbourg, Lola Ridge, Eli Siegel, and Kay Boyle; and pages from presses that published poetry such as Bruno’s Bohemia, The Quill, Egmont Arens’s Playboy, and The Masses.

We traced the transformation of the Masses into the Liberator and the New Masses. We followed the editor of The Quill, Arthur Moss. Upset with Prohibition, he left the U.S. and Greenwich Village for Paris and the left bank where he published another bohemian literary magazine he called Gargoyle.

My friend P.J. (Paul Johnston, 1899-1987) was a fine press printer who arrived in the Village shortly after the First World War. He recalled how Edna St. Vincent Millay challenged the sexual mores of the nation in the days before she left Greenwich Village for Paris.

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
(Millay in "A Few Figs from Thistles" 1920)

P.J. lived across the street from the Jefferson Market Library in an apartment that in 1920 belonged to his friend, the publisher of the first Playboy (1919), Egmont Arens.

Playboy 1919

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXVII)

2010-05-08T13:32:00.000-04:00

There is a mystical moment of inspiration and recognition that bridges the gulf between poetry and prose. Could the muse be tamed to inspire poetry during a 90 minute workshop? It may happen during the process of writing, reading, rewriting, and rereading. My approach to the poetry workshop was to present models, explore structures, and play with spontaneous verbal and visual statements.

Waterways eschewed the neatly polished matte or glossy look of journals that took themselves much more seriously. We relied on the technology we had at home in our loft. Barbara did the editing and proofreading. We turned our teachers salaries into the project to keep our printer going. We published only poetry, and no advertisements. We trusted our reactions to the work. Barbara did most of the reading and set standards for Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream. No haiku. Seldom publish rhyme. No gratuitous sex or violence, since Waterways was aimed at a mixed audience of children and adults.

The workshop in the library grew. There is a videotape of a workshop where we discussed a Wordsworth sonnet that concluded with the sestet:

Wisdom doth live with children round her knees:
Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind's business: these are the degrees
By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk
True Power doth grow on; and her rights are these.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXVI)

2010-05-07T17:51:00.001-04:00

In the 1980’s, Barbara and I taught weekly workshop at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. Barbara worked with the children. The adults studied Greenwich Village poets and publishers of the early Twentieth Century.

After 1910, the Village began to assert itself as the cultural cauldron for American artists and writers. The Masses, whose editorial offices were once located in the Village not far from the library, was in the forefront of a series of publications that presented a community of poets and artists.

A creative community of writers emerged out of the Jefferson Market library workshop which continued for fifteen years. The participants were open to new work by new writers with different values. There was a willingness to look for the experience that makes a poem work whether in a group or as an individual.

Many of the participants in my workshop were older than me. The participants in Barbara’s workshop were children, although many of our friends who were senior residents of the community would sit in and listen to poetry the children wrote. As facilitators, We’d learn from the community of writers that came to our workshops, which were open to the public in a public place where all might be comfortable and feel included.

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol. 2 No. 2 Jefferson Market branch NYPL