Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXVIII)

Waterways was invited by the Office of Alternative High Schools and Programs to teach the students at the Austin H. MacCormick Island Academy for young adult inmates on Rikers Island, the first high school in a United States correctional facility. Our experience in special education, literacy, English, arts, and curriculum development ensured that even the most troubled incarcerated student would have access to Ten Penny Players’ educational experience adapted to the special circumstances.

Matthew Hejna was the Waterways teacher at the Rikers Island Educational Facility. He used small press publication, journalism, expressive writing and poetry to motivate the students. He brought copies of the Streams anthologies into the classrooms to inspire writing. One student, Shariff Moore, wrote a poem in response:

THE STREAMS BOOK

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 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,
Or something that bothers you and gets you upset.
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!

John Brathwaite ran the print shop for the Austin H. MacCormick Island Academy. He and his students were responsible for the editing and printing of Academy News, one of city’s most engaging high school publications. With his distinctive craftsmanship, he printed poetry anthologies and chapbooks for Waterways. He recounted the story of one student’s poetry chapbook, in Journey Through Jailhouse Jeopardy:

Billz was a 17-year-old little fellow from Brooklyn. He had a cantankerous streak in him that was well known to teachers. Even his peers would often wonder aloud, “Damn, what’s wit’ dat n...?” There was, however, this ironic twist to Billz: he was independent and motivated and if you knew how to bring out these characteristics in him, his cantankerous streak could be subdued...

Because he was convinced that he was as good a writer as he was a barber, Billz pestered me to let him come to one of my afternoon writing periods sometimes. I finally agreed under the condition that, when he could do so, the teacher with whom he officially had that period would have to give him a permission slip. The plan worked out and when Billz came he worked on writing his poetry. He did very well. Consequently, he was one of those students chosen to have a little chapbook of his best verses printed.

When eventually he saw his little book, so neatly produced, cover printed in colors and even laminated, he was transformed from grouchy to happy. Every day he would be seen reading it with a smile on his face. He was also in the habit of signing copies for his teachers and fellow students. He also signed and mailed out copies. And for all those copies that would be left over, he intended to take them home when he was released. And as it was just a small book, he would sell them for two dollars each.

Journey Through Jailhouse Jeopardy: A good New York City teacher ends up down in bad Rikers Island jail. Odimumba Kwamdela (J. Ashton Brathwaite) Kibo Books 2004 pp 232-3

Paul Auerbach, an English teacher, librarian, and GED coordinator at Austin MacCormick Island Academy, wrote:

Waterways has been a key component in our school's poetry writing program. Throughout the school year, students are invited to submit a minimum of ten poems which are published as poetry chapbooks. These chapbooks are distributed throughout the school, and the student poets receive several copies to give to family members and friends on the outside. The themes of these books are often of a surprisingly philosophical bent: meditations on the purpose of life and the nature of good and evil; other recurring themes are love for mothers, girlfriends, and God. Much of their writing also expresses their fear of and fascination with street life: crime, drugs and revenge.


Arts for Incarcerated High School Students by Paul Auerbach

Ronald G. King had been incarcerated as a juvenile and rehabilitated himself while earning a college degree. He became a Waterways teaching/artist and para in the classrooms set up in the Rose M. Singer Center, the jail for women on Rikers Island. Tim Lisante, the Assistant Principal at the high school for incarcerated women, appreciated the importance of teaching poetry and helped hire Ron, who used his training in poetry therapy to help incarcerated students write about the issues that mattered most to them.

Morning Light

by Betty

Morning light appears to me.
What my eyes see
Don't want to be.
Four walls encased within
Brings to remembrance of
Where I've been.
Been through changes that
Channel my mind.
Left so many memories
Far behind;
Laughter and cries and joyous sounds
The delight and merriment of a busy
Playground.
Wish this light
Would disappear
Take with it
All my fears.
Tear; down the walls encasing my soul
Unchannel my mind
To loose
Its hold.

(from We Master This)

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXVII)

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)

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.

Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part LXV)

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)

“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)

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)

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)

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)

“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)

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)

¡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)

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)

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)

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...